


Salvaged Goods

by Interferon



Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hostage Situations, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Robot Feels, Slow Build, android repair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interferon/pseuds/Interferon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ripley has been rescued, but is by no means safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Спасенные](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12758355) by [mechanical_phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanical_phoenix/pseuds/mechanical_phoenix)



She woke with the taste of iron in her mouth.

Consciousness returned in a slow, aching drip, like poison from a tainted IV line. Ripley tried to shift her body as she became aware of the position she'd been sleeping in: arms twisted behind her back, face pressed into the flooring grille beneath her. She tried to pull her arms in front of her and they refused to move. They were bound securely together at her wrists.

Her eyes flew open in the resulting surge of adrenaline.

"Fu-" her tongue was sluggish in her mouth, her words hindered further by her cracked, ice-cold lips, "Fuck... what..." She pulled and twisted, but to no avail. Whatever was binding her hands held tight.

Ripley squinted at her surroundings, struggling to see through the room's harsh, fluorescent illumination. She was lying on the floor of what looked to be a storage closet lined with metal shelves. The floor and walls reverberated with the unmistakable hum of a ship's engines. Beside her an oil-stained blanket lay wadded up next to several expired heat packs.

Ripley reached back into her memory try and recall how she'd ended up here. It was no use; the last thing she remembered was floating weightless in the void, watching the _Torrens_ drift away from her, shrinking smaller and smaller as it fell into the gravitational well of the gas giant. She'd spent those final moments coming to terms with the fact that she was going to die alone in the vacuum of space; but at least she wasn't dying at the hands of one of those _creatures_. At least she'd achieved that small victory. She must have lost consciousness soon afterward.

That explained the bone-deep chill that had settled inside her body: mild hypothermia, most likely from her EVA suit's failing life support systems. Someone must have recovered her before her suit gave out completely. Her rescuers had then made a meager attempt at keeping her alive, judging by the used heat packs scattered next to her - though this had come only _after_ they'd made sure she was restrained, immobile and helpless, Ripley reminded herself.

She'd do well to remember that these were not people with her best interests in mind.

It was a struggle to raise herself into a sitting position without using her hands. Every muscle, especially those in her shoulders and thighs, resisted every step. Every square inch of her skin felt like it had been beaten with a meat tenderizing mallet; painful reminders of the last frantic hours she'd spent trying to escape from the disintegrating wreck of Sevastopol. Ripley groaned as she knelt, then stood on unsteady legs. She stumbled over to the doorway, which was sealed with a thick steel hatch. Turning her back towards the door, Ripley pressed her hands against its handle and grappled with it, twisting, lifting, pushing in every direction. It didn't budge. There was no console to hack, and she had no devices to hack it with even if there were; her bag containing all her tools, gadgets and weapons had gone conspicuously missing.

"Shit," she leaned heavily against the door, the back of her head falling against the steel in defeat.

It was all too easy to shift back into hyperalert survival mode after the hell of Sevastopol. Ripley's gaze darted between every corner, checked every shelf - the storage closet appeared to have been completely emptied of supplies (possible tools). There were no vent openings large enough for her to squeeze into (which could be either curse or blessing - though the air ducts emanated no ominous noises, she couldn't help but still be wary of what had once lurked inside them). Could she use the edge of one of the support struts to cut her bonds? Perhaps, but even if she did so she was completely unarmed. She'd have no way to defend herself from her captors during her escape.

Maybe a better strategy was to feign compliance. Keep herself imprisoned. Learn everything she could about the ship and its crew before trying anything drastic. Once the idea struck her, Ripley knew exactly what she had to do.

Many people who knew Ripley called her impulsive; she felt that a more accurate term was _decisive._

"Hello?" she shouted into the sealed hatch as loud as she could. The yell suddenly degenerated into a violent coughing fit. Raising her voice anywhere above a low murmur was _agony_. Her throat was bone-dry; it felt like having sand trapped inside her vocal cords, but she kept on going anyway. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

She continued to call out for several minutes, hearing nothing but the ubiquitous hum of the ship in reply. Just when she'd been ready to give up, she heard faint murmurs of human speech echo from outside her cell. She sat back down and scooted herself away from the door, turning to face it just as the hatch slid open with a harsh grinding sound, its pistons more than a few years past due for scheduled maintenance.

Two men stood on the other side of the doorway; one of them preoccupied with a computer console, the other leaning confidently against the hallway outside. His cool blue gaze stared from below the brim of a orange Seegson brand baseball cap. Ripley immediately disliked the way he was looking at her; as though evaluating a new trophy being added to his collection.

"Sleeping beauty's finally awake, huh," his voice was smooth and controlled, a stark contrast to his rugged appearance. His face carried a week of black stubble and he was dressed in a mismatched collection of clothing from different uniforms and flight suits, most of them spotted with burns and rust-red stains.

"No thanks to the shit hospitality, yeah, she is," Ripley retorted. "Mind telling me what the fuck's going on?"

He ignored her outburst. "You'll find out soon enough. Come on, get up."

He made no move to help her as she struggled to her feet, but after seeing how she had to fight to keep herself upright, he motioned to his companion at the console. "Help her."

"Sure, Cap," the other man hurried to comply, grabbing hold of Ripley's left arm to help steady her. He was slightly shorter than she was, with a placating smile and darting, nervous eyes.

"Let's go, princess," the first man, apparently the captain of this vessel, turned and leisurely strode down the hallway followed closely by his lackey and prisoner.

They wove through a winding series of corridors and passageways; a mismatched, modular construction of steel walls and grilled flooring typical of a low-end private commercial ship. Widely-spaced florescent lights lit their path. Ripley tried not to look up at them - her head was starting to throb with what she feared was an oncoming migraine.

"Is anyone going to bother telling me where the hell I am?" she murmured. The hand steadying her twitched.

"You're in the commercial starship _Esmeralda_ ," the man holding her upright leaned in close and told her in a low voice, "Just keep quiet, do what the Captain says and you'll get out of this fine."

Ripley nodded, grateful for the small scrap of information. "And you are...?"

"Garcia," a terse whisper, "Now please shut up."

The Captain had entered a small room in the right side of the hallway. Garcia followed, guiding Ripley into the seat of a metal folding chair before backing off to stand in the doorway.

"That'll be all, Garcia."

"Sure, Cap. I'll be on the bridge," Garcia nodded and quickly fled the room.

The Captain began pacing around a rectangular table in the center of the room. On top of it sat Ripley's bag, lying conspicuously open with several of its items spread across the table next to it. For a long, awkward minute the Captain said nothing; instead he picked through Ripley's bag, purposely ignoring its owner as he did so. She was forced to watch helplessly as he selected first a noisemaker, then one of the primitive pipe bombs she'd constructed from pieces of scrap metal and broken electronics. He examined each improvised device with careful patience.

"'A. Ripley'," without looking up at her face, he read the nametag from the front of her uniform. He grabbed another item out of the bag; a lump of charge packs and tightly coiled wires that was one of her homemade EMP grenades. "You make these things yourself?"

She didn't see any point in trying to lie. The bag had been recovered along with her; it was obviously hers. "Yeah, I did."

He made a contemplative sound and set the EMP bomb back down before paced around the table a bit more, his steps infuriatingly deliberate. From one of the bag's side pockets he snatched several bullets. He pulled a gun from its holster tucked under his left arm. As he opened the chamber and loaded the bullets, Ripley recognized it as her own revolver. She bit the inside of her cheek and remained silent.

"You some kind of engineer?"

"I am," she told him.

The man holstered Ripley's revolver, reached back into the bag and pulled out her shotgun. When he snapped open the chamber to peer inside, he found it fully loaded.

"Awful lot of firepower in here for just an 'engineer'."

"You were on the station, too," she countered, "You know how it was in there." Ripley could put two and two together as well - the Captain's tattered clothing; his calculating, deadened expression - he'd seen things. He'd killed people. He was a survivor. Just like her.

"Yeah," his tone sank a lower, his control over his words tightening slightly. His fingers stroked the stock of the shotgun, analyzing the ridges and contours before carefully setting the weapon back down. "Yeah, I know how it was."

The Captain then crossed his arms and, finally, fixed the full power of his gaze onto his captive. She tried her best to match its intensity even though her body wanted nothing more than to let her head droop in exhaustion.

"All right, Miss Ripley," he began, "You're an engineer. I, as you can probably tell, am not. I'm more of an..." he searched the empty air in front of him for the correct word, " _Entrepreneur._ My job is to find interesting business opportunities for my network of contacts and take advantage of them."

He began to pace again, his footfalls hollow and metallic.

"A few months ago a little bird told me that Sevastopol Station was in the midst of being decommissioned. Minimum crew presence, maximum salvage, much of which could be moved easily to a neighboring sector... that, Miss Ripley, is what I call a business opportunity."

 _Smugglers._ She'd been taken hostage by smugglers. Great. _Fantastic._ Ripley took a deep breath through her nose and kept listening.

"Now, as you can understand after having experienced the delightful vacation destination that was Sevastopol for yourself, I'm short a few crew members right now. I also have some salvaged items that will fetch me a significantly higher price if I can get them repaired before I meet with my contact," the Captain leaned back against the table and began idly threading a flare in between the fingers of his left hand. "I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at here. You agree to help me out, and I agree not to space your body. Everyone wins."

Ripley kept her face blank and ignored the icy fingers that clenched inside her stomach.

"Well, what do you say, Miss Ripley? Are you willing to do me this little favor?"

"I don't exactly have a choice, do I," she said with a grim smirk. "All right. I'll do what I can."

"Wonderful," the Captain clapped his hands together and his stubble-covered face stretched into the most insincere smile she'd ever seen. "Come with me. You can go ahead and get started immediately."

Ripley was led further down into the bowels of this ship, past several crew's quarters, closer to the deep, resonant hum of the ship's engines. Her captor let her stop at one point along the way to use a bathroom but refused to untie her hands or leave the room as she relieved herself. Forced to struggle against the construction of her flight suit and forgo privacy along with most notions of personal hygiene, she was left feeling filthy and humiliated, but at least she wouldn't be pissing herself in a few hours. They set out again afterwards into the maze of passageways. The Captain took position behind her, directing her to go left or right as they reached each fork. He saw no need to hold her at gunpoint; her helplessness had already been made abundantly clear.

"Here we are," after a minute of walking the Captain halted her in front of a large sealed hatch. He turned to a console on the wall next to the door and keyed in a four-number passcode (Ripley tried to peer around his hands, but only caught the last of the four numbers). The door slid to the left, disappearing into the wall.

"What kind of stuff do you need me to fix, anyway?" she asked him as he led her into a short secondary passageway beyond the first hatch.

The Captain was mulling over the 10-digit keyboard beneath another console screen. "Damn it, what... ah, just a couple of busted robots, some other random computer shit, a few other parts. It'll probably take you a while work through, but we'll have a few weeks to leave you to it."

"Robots," she repeated out loud. A tight, panicked feeling - uncannily reminiscent of stiff, rubbery fingers - clasped around her throat.

Oblivious to her plight, he kept on speaking as he tried several different combinations, "Yeah, originally we weren't going to bother with those cheap Seegson models, but I changed my mind after we found a different make mixed in with them. Almost missed it completely; if Harris hadn't caught sight of that white shit leaking out of it we would've thought it was just another poor dead bastard. They're making them so lifelike these days. Had to cut through some glass to get to it, but in the end it'll be more than worth my time and trouble."

The anxiety simmering in Ripley's chest went still, but couldn't quite make the transition over to hope. She didn't dare let herself. Not yet.

"What," she spoke, lower than a whisper, just an exhale of disbelief.

"Do you have any idea what a recent Weyland-Yutani model can go for on an open market these days? Thirty-five thousand in parts; seventy thousand if you can get it working again... _There_ we go," the second hatch finally slid aside as the Captain input the correct code.

The gust of air that rushed out as the hatch opened was saturated with the smell of motor oil and the acrid, latex-like scent of synthetic blood. A relatively large room lay beyond, with work benches and tool carts pressed against each wall. And directly in center, laid out indifferently like a row of merchandise on a thrift store shelf, was a row of bodies. A few were intact, but most lay on the floor in pieces; missing limbs or entire body segments and leaking pools of white, high-turbidity hydraulic fluid. All were wearing the same brown-and-orange standard uniform issued to Seegson brand synthetics.

All of them except one.

From somewhere behind her the Captain was still speaking but Ripley was now only dimly aware of his presence _("focus on the Weyland-Yutani model first, the Joes can be dismantled for parts, don't goof off because there's a camera over there")_ ; she barely noticed him grab her bruised wrists and snip her bonds with a wire cutter.

A voice in the back of Ripley's head was screaming at her that it had been six whole years since her Cybernetic Engineering class, that there was no way she would remember anything, that you weren't supposed to mix parts from different makes like this... But none of those doubts made one lick of difference, because she'd already decided that _she was going to save him._ She was not going to rest until he was repaired, and that was that. These bastards weren't getting their hands anywhere _near_ his internal components, because after what they'd gone through together, after he'd sacrificed everything he had for Ripley, she would much rather climb into an airlock and space _herself_ than sit back and watch him be scrapped.

"...til we make it past the first checkpoint, but let us know over the intercom if you need anything from around the ship. Unless you can think of anything you'll need off-hand?"

Ripley stared down at the row of motionless bodies laid out before her. It took every ounce of her self control to keep her voice steady as she spoke:

"No, I'll be fine. I can do this."

"Good," she didn't turn to watch him leave, feeling certain that if she had she would've only been treated to another of his greasy smiles, "Just remember to keep busy. I like to see a busy crew. Good luck."

The door slid shut behind him and the locking mechanism beeped three times, indicating that she'd been sealed inside. Ripley waited until she heard the second hatch slide shut and lock as well before letting her composure fall apart.

She stumbled, tripping over one of the deactivated Working Joes in her rush, and crumpled to the floor next to that final figure on the far right; the one clad in the olive-green flight suit, the one with brown hair disheveled beyond recognition and brown, soulful eyes staring empty and lifeless at the ceiling.

"Samuels," she whispered his name to no one but a room of mechanical corpses.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! And an extra thank you for any kudos or comments, of course~
> 
> FYI, things are going to get technical for the next few chapters (and by "technical" I mean "squicky android gore"); a big preemptive thank you to anyone who sticks with me through it.
> 
>  **UPDATE:** [This Story Now Has Cover Art!](http://malsart.tumblr.com/post/120831150276/read-it-here-written-by-interferonalpha-art-by) by the lovely and multitalented [Bldymalice!!!](http://malsart.tumblr.com/)  
>  I highly recommend you take a look at the rest of her work and blogs as well, since she's made quite a few other contributions to this fandom (and ship :3) in the form of both art and fic. She also takes commissions!


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay," Ripley murmured to herself, a mantra of self-comfort, "Okay. I've got this."

She knelt next to Samuels' body, her hands smoothing out the wrinkles in his jacket as she tried to form some kind of plan. That initial rush of conflicting emotion was fading now; that mingled hope and despair, happiness and grief was settling out, making it easier for her to think clearly. She ran a calming hand over her scalp and through her ponytail, took a deep breath, sniffled a bit (exactly when had she started crying?) and relaxed her shoulders.

"I can do this. Okay," The shakiness in her voice retreated with emotions as they went back into low tide. She began to breathe normally again.

Once she felt fully composed, she looked at him, _really_ looked at him, and began analyzing the situation.

There was a small trickle of white leaking out of one of his nostrils and from the corner of his mouth, but no other visible signs of damage. No scorch marks, no broken skin. All his damage must be internal. With a sharp stab of dread Ripley remembered the way he'd stumbled out of the reformat chamber clutching his head. If the power overload that APOLLO launched at him had gotten through the insulating polymer casing around his brain, then she had no chance of repairing him. His personality, his quirks, his memories... everything that defined him as a person would've been destroyed, melted into a useless lump of fused circuits. But that was just the worst-case scenario. There were dozens of other possible explanations for why he'd gone inoperative.

"Shit. Okay," Ripley told herself again despite there being a distinct chance that things were anything but 'okay'. She took a few deep breaths and spent another minute checking over Samuels' neck and head for damage before realizing it was just a stalling tactic. The only way for her to tell anything at this point was to open him up, something she was decidedly _not_ looking forward to.

Steeling herself, she rose to her feet, groaning and swearing as her muscles kept reminding her of their recent abuse with a fresh wave of pain.

It took ten minutes of searching throughout the room's various tool chests for Ripley to collect the minimum tools she might need: electrician's gloves, several pliers of various sizes and types, a soldering iron and ion torch, cable shears, some insulated screwdrivers and a universal multimeter. She'd also need a cutting tool of some kind, but had trouble finding anything suitable. Just as she was ready to make that dubious request from her captors, she discovered a utility knife in the bottom drawer of the last tool chest. She pried open the casing of the knife and replaced its dull, chipped blade with one of the fresh ones stored inside the handle. She'd just have to hope it was sharp enough to cut cleanly.

As she wandered around the room, the camera positioned across from the door tracked her movements with a soft _whirr_. She had no way of knowing whether it did so of its own programmed volition or under the direct control of the one of her captors. Ripley glanced at it, noticing that it lacked a microphone component - video feed only. She tried not to give it more than a moment's attention though; tried not to give the impression that she was mentally plotting out escape routes in the back of her thoughts even though that was, in fact, _exactly_ what she was doing. As a habit she also made sure to note the location of each of the room's air supply vents and wiring boxes.

Once she'd collected everything, Ripley carried the tools back over to Samuels, taking care to avoid getting too close to the row of recumbent Working Joes. Though none of them had moved since she'd arrived and appeared to be safely deactivated if their opaque, darkened eyes were any indicator, she wasn't taking any chances. She'd learned the hard way that despite their poor reputation, Seegson models were extremely durable and had a habit of springing back to life when she least expected it.

Ripley knelt onto the floor next to Samuels, laying out her tools in a row on the floor beside him. She looked him over one last time - God, she would have given almost anything to not have to be the one to do this to him - and sighed. Time to suck it up and get to work.

There was something profoundly wrong, almost _obscene_ about touching a deactivated android. It was probably the same taboo that kept people from touching the dead body at a wake. Some human instincts could not be shaken off no matter how much logic was applied to the situation. Synthetics didn't rot when they died - there was no smell, no bloating or purpling of flesh, no risk of infection, no implication of necrophilia - but none of that mattered. Ripley could feel the taboo exerting its full effect on her as she started unclasping the series of buttons running down the front of Samuels' uniform. She pulled the garment open, exposing a grey t-shirt with a Weyland-Yutani logo over one breast, and flinched as her fingers unavoidably brushed his cold polyurethane skin near his collarbone.

"Come on, _really?_ " she chided herself. Things were only going to get worse from here. She'd better toughen up if she wanted to be of any sort of help to him.

Ripley concentrated on that thought before grabbing onto his left shoulder, using it to lift his weight and peel his sleeve down his arm. The outermost layer of his uniform was slightly oversized, and that extra volume helped ease the removal process. His right sleeve came off even easier. The undershirt came last; by gently positioning his arms, she managed to remove it one sleeve at a time and lift it over his head. Ripley felt herself growing more accustomed to the feeling of his skin the more of it she touched. As long as she ignored the temperature difference, the texture was virtually identical to a human's, with very similar patterns of hair and a pliancy that mimicked the layers of connective tissue, muscle and fat that a human would have. Ripley pulled the green outer layer from under him before gently laying him back down. If she didn't remove it now, it was going to end up soaked in white blood in very short order.

She paused here, using the respite to think back to her years of schooling, mentally transporting herself to the diagnostic lab of her Cybernetic Engineering class. For one of their lab sections their professor had gotten hold of a pre-merger Weyland synthetic - one of the "David" series, deactivated, decades old and hopelessly outdated - he had been the first advanced synthetic she'd seen up-close, and she'd been in awe at the attention to detail and sheer quality of even that primitive model. She tried to recall where all the essential organs and components had been situated inside that David model's body. Most of all Ripley was concerned with the primary power cells, as those were her first concern when it came to Samuels. They were the system most likely to have failed in an overload, and if they'd been irreversibly damaged or had ruptured inside him, it was going to be quite a challenge to retrofit a Seegson replacement. She seemed to remember the primary power cells being stored along the rear of the David model's thoracic cavity, slightly lower than where a human's lungs would be, one tucked against either side of the spine.

That being said... where, then, was the best place to start with Samuels? Should she open his chest from the front or the back? She was going to have to disarticulate some of his ribs either way, shift some organs aside, maybe even remove them completely. Ripley found herself staring absently at his face as she pondered this; her gaze passed over his lips and she remembered what his smile had looked like, warm and polite, but with the faintest trace of sadness. At exactly the same moment, she imagined plunging her hands into his cold entrails.

"Fuck..." she turned away, nauseated. Luckily there was nothing left in stomach for it to churn up. Ripley hadn't eaten anything more substantial than a scavenged bite here and there in _days_ , not since before that first ill-fated spacewalk into Sevastopol.

"Fucking Christ... get a hold of yourself," she shielded her eyes from the fluorescent lights until the queasiness passed. Once it did, she turned back to the deactivated synthetic before her and, on an impulse, reached down and closed his eyelids with her thumb and forefinger. "Sorry."

Ripley used that anger with herself as fuel - anger for being such a dainty damsel about this, for not thinking of such a simple courtesy as closing his eyes before that moment - and she abruptly reached over to grab the utility knife. Just as abruptly, she decided to roll Samuels onto his stomach. Cutting into him this way would place her closer to the power cells, wouldn't disturb as many organs, and would make it easier for her to follow his wiring up his spine if she needed to. The fact that she wouldn't be able to look him in the face while she dismantled him _may_ have also had something to do with her final verdict.

"Okay. Okay. Okay," that reassuring litany of hers returned as she readied her knife. She consciously clamped down on her arm muscles until her hands stopped shaking. She held the razor just above his spine, in the direct center of his back between his shoulder blades; an inch above his skin, then a centimeter, a millimeter. Then she pressed down. His skin parted cleanly around the blade and white blood immediately welled out around it.

"Shit... I'm sorry..." Her litany turned to whispered apologies as she continued to drag the blade further down his back, through artificial muscle, grazing the knobs of his spine. Trails of white spilled out of the incision, forming rivulets down both sides of his back. Her only comfort during this agonizing process was that he gave no sign of being anything but an inert, plastic doll; completely motionless and lifeless. She reached a point about an inch past his final rib and stopped cutting. She couldn't imagine the power cells being situated anywhere lower than that.

The next correct step in this process was to create secondary incisions at the beginning and end of the main incision that followed the structure of his synthetic musculature. Ripley did so, making four more cuts in the appropriate places. The finished incision looked something like a double "Y" with the two letters linked at the base. Now his skin could be safely lifted and pulled aside without damage to the nerves and musculature attached to it.

There. She'd done it. Ripley restrained the urge to throw the knife across the room, instead setting it next to her other tools to be cleaned later. Hopefully that had been the worst step in repairing her friend. Regardless, she still had quite a challenge before her.

The fact that his ribs and spine were not actually bone-white, but a pearly silver-white color instead made the next steps a little easier. Their actual structure was slightly different as well; simpler, cleaner, neater lines than the arches and knobs of calcium that an organic would have had. Now that he had been sliced open and made vulnerable, these reminders of her friend's inhumanity started to became _reassurances_ where they'd once been mildly unsettling. They reminded her that she wasn't really hurting Samuels; that she couldn't really hurt him unless she began thoughtlessly (or maliciously) ripping components out. He'd been built to endure this kind of repair work, and despite being leagues ahead of most humans when it came to emotional sensitivity and people skills, he was indeed still a machine.

In general, Ripley was quite partial to machines. Even when they misbehaved or gave her trouble it was never without a good reason. She understood them; she supposed she wouldn't have made it very far as an engineer if she didn't. And if she happened to find your average power generator or air purifier better company than your average person, that wasn't anyone's goddamn business but hers.

Ripley reached between two of his cadmium-alloy ribs, slippery with white blood, feeling the spot where they connected to his spine. She dug her fingernail into one tiny, hidden gap between the artificial bones and with a click, the rib popped out of its corresponding vertebra.

"Oh," she startled and retracted her hand, then peered down at the disarticulated bone, her surprise turning to fascination."Huh." As an experiment she tried pressing the rib back into its joint. It immediately snapped back in place with minimal pressure and didn't budge.

Ripley used this newly acquired knowledge to carefully and systematically unhinge each rib. Underneath them lay the tangled mass of tubes, pumps and circuits that supported his main systems; she had no interest in disrupting those if she could avoid it. What she _did_ have an interest in were the white, flattened ovoids that floated above them - each the size of her hand, one on either side of the spine, placed almost exactly where she'd predicted they would be. She'd found his primary power cells and they looked completely intact inside their protective polymer casing. If their casing had managed to protect them, then chances were that his brain was undamaged as well, safe inside a layer of the same polymer within the additional protection of his skull around it.

"Thank god," Ripley sighed in relief. This was her first real hint of hope, the first real sign that her luck might _finally_ be turning since she'd woken up on this godforsaken ship. "Now we just have to figure out what the real issue is, right?"

She threw herself back into her task with renewed determination, leaning in, closely examining each visible component. She quickly spotted the first potential source of Samuels' problem: the power coupling and cord running from each power cell into his spine looked burned; black smudges were etched into the metal couplings and scorched into the plastic coating around the cords. Of course - it was obvious now - the non-insulated components had absorbed the damage from the overload before it could reach the power cells.

Her hesitation was rapidly fading as she fell more and more into her comfort zone. She grabbed an insulated pliers and screwdriver and dove back into his chest, quickly detaching the damaged cords. The power cells now floated free in his chest. Next came the multimeter - she connected the device to each power cell one at a time, finding that both contained more than adequate charge.

"Now we're getting somewhere," she grinned triumphantly, barely even noticing the white gore that coated her hands and forearms. She'd have to follow the damaged cords up his spine to detach them fully, but after seeing how easily she'd disarticulated his other bones she had no worries on that front. She _would_ have to lengthen the incision to get there, however.

It was much easier the second time. The feeling of resistance as his skin parted under the razor still unnerved her, but she was able to restrain herself from wincing and apologizing as she extended the cut up to the base of his skull. His vertebrae were just as easy to disassemble as the ribs had been; it was just a matter of finding another tiny hidden latch. As she removed the top half of each one, exposing the bundle of cables and fiber optics running through the center of his spine, she set each piece on the floor beside her in the exact order that she'd removed them. She noticed that the burn marks on the power cords disappeared at the exact point where they entered his spine. Weyland-Yutani must be giving their synthetics insulated endoskeletons now; more good news for Samuels. She wondered idly if they were still putting secondary power sources into the brain stems. Maybe they'd stopped doing it for cost reasons. That would explain why Samuels had gone down after having the connection to his primary power source damaged.

Ripley carefully threaded the damaged cables through his spine and separated them from the rest of the wiring by running her fingers through the slippery bundle of cords.The lines weren't live anymore, so she unplugged them from the base of his skull with her bare fingers.

Afloat on how far she'd come, she almost didn't notice it. There, etched into the cadmium alloy protecting his brain stem, were more scorch marks.

"Shit," she peered closer, parting his skin with her fingers. Yeah. It was burned. _"Shit!"_

She bit into her lower lip past the point of pain, bit down until she tasted blood. Should she try and open that up as well? No; she wasn't anywhere near confident enough in her abilities to try to mess around inside his head, not as anything but a last desperate resort. She would just have to start by replacing the cables and hope for the best.

Getting replacement cables meant first getting _up_ again, something that her body had not signed on board for. Her legs had stiffened under the strain of her awkward kneeling position, making the effort of pulling herself to her feet doubly more difficult.

As she made it to her feet a scratchy, static-distorted voice suddenly boomed out of nowhere. Ripley promptly dropped the damaged cables in surprise.

"Hello there, Miss Ripley. Looks like you've been working hard."

"God damn it, don't do that," she scolded the voice as she recovered, shooting a dirty look at the camera as she retrieved the cables from the floor. When there was no response, she remembered that her room's security camera recorded video only and stormed over to the intercom in annoyance. She flipped the switch underneath the round plastic microphone mounted into the wall, "Turn down the volume next time, will you?"

"Glad to see you're feeling better," the voice mocked. Ripley recognized it now; it was the Captain, doubtlessly here to gloat over her, "I don't think your project over there is feeling too good, though. I sure hope you know how to put it back together again when you're done with it."

Ripley looked down at Samuels; taken apart like that, he _did_ look like the victim of some kind of android serial killer. The realization that their captor was seeing him in this state as well brought on an odd surge of protective anger; she reached over to grab his discarded jacket, spread it open, and draped it over him before returning to the intercom.

"Don't worry, I'm taking good care of him," she said, placing a slight emphasis on that last pronoun. She wondered if the Captain noticed. "So what do you want?"

"Other than to check in on my hardworking engineer? I just wanted to let you know that I sent Garcia down with some food for you. He should be there in a minute. Enjoy, Miss Ripley. I'll check in with you again later." With that, the intercom went silent.

Honestly, food had been just about the last thing on her mind; her throat was parched, so some water would have been nice, but she couldn't tell whether the ache in her abdomen was from hunger or just more of the same dull pain present in the rest of her body. She checked her wristwatch and found, to her surprise, that more than four hours had passed since she'd awoken on the _Esmeralda_ in captivity.

The entrance to her room gave off a shrill, protracted beep before the hatch slid open. A figure stepped inside holding a small foil pouch and water bottle (thank god) in one hand and a pistol in the other.

"Put your hands up and move to the middle of the room," Garcia told her, motioning with the barrel of the gun, "I'll set these next to the door."

Ripley complied, placing her blood-slick hands behind her head and carefully stepping over two of the dismembered Working Joes to reach the center of the room. True to his word, Garcia set the supplies down just inside the doorway, keeping a wary eye and pistol sight trained on her as he did. He then drew back behind the doorway, lowering the weapon slightly.

"You doing okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Ripley told him with a tired sigh. "About as good as can be expected for a hostage."

"Hah, I guess. Well, if you need anything else remember to u-"

His sentence trailed off as a faint whirring sound came from somewhere in front of him, somewhere between himself and his captive. Ripley's brows furrowed; she looked around, scanning the room for the source of the noise. Garcia's expression suddenly filled with dread; he took a hasty step back and slapped his free hand onto a button on the side of the hallway. The hatched slammed shut and locked.

Only then did Ripley see it - the Working Joe on the floor in front of the door _twitched_ ; once, twice, before stiffly raising itself into a sitting position.

"Reboot complete," it said, and it pulled itself to its feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noooo, cliffhanger! I'm much too prone to writing them.
> 
> Never fear, I have rough versions of the next few chapters running through the editing mill as we speak, so it shouldn't be too long before you get some relief.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

 Ripley couldn't contain the shout of primal fear that left her throat. Her body threw itself backwards, slamming into shelves and tool chests, sending metal wrenches and spare parts clattering loudly to the floor. She tried to recover a scrap of control by reaching down and grabbing one of those wrenches but it was pitifully small, much smaller than her maintenance jack had been; hardly an effective weapon against an android. It probably wouldn't even make a dent in that thick rubber-coated skull, but it was all she had. She clutched the wrench in both hands, holding it aimed in warning.

"Reinstating link to APOLLO. Please wait."

The Working Joe was standing motionless, its back to Ripley, staring vacantly at the doorway. Its right arm was missing from the bicep down; it looked like it had been torn forcefully away if the ripped sleeve and bits of dangling tubing were any indication. That fact did nothing to reduce the threat it represented in Ripley's mind. She felt sure that it could still strangle her quite effectively if she let it get close enough. But it _wasn't_ getting closer. It _wasn't_ _moving_. It was still standing there on the other side of the room, frozen.

"Connection failed. Resetting."

Maybe she had a chance of surviving this after all. Ripley slowly and silently inched her way behind the protective barrier of one of the rolling tool chests. If she hid now maybe she'd be able to surprise it and score a crippling hit before it found her.

"Connection failed. Resetting," it kept repeating to itself.

Working Joes were very rudimentary androids; a great deal of their thinking and goal orientation had been outsourced to Sevastopol's central AI. But who knew how one of them would react once it figured out that there was no APOLLO left to connect to?

"Connection unavailable," it eventually concluded. That was when the Joe decided to turn around.

Ripley pulled her body into a tiny compact bundle, clutching her wrench and peering furtively around the side of the tool chest. The Joe scanned the entire room, its head turning at precise increments to examine it in sections. Its eyes glowed placid white. Maybe it wasn't going to turn hostile at all? Regardless, Ripley felt better staying hidden for as long as possible.

The android's next words revealed just how futile that plan was. It took a step towards her, unmistakably looking directly at her hiding spot. "Seegson employee database unavailable. Please state your name."

"Uh," she let her shoulder edge out of her hiding spot as she met its gaze. Should she make up a false name? A pseudonym might do more harm than good in the end, especially with her captors still referring to her by her real one. "Uh... Amanda Ripley."

It contemplated that answer for a while, once again going perfectly, unnaturally still. Ripley decided then and there - that ability to go completely motionless was _definitely_ the most disturbing thing about the Working Joes. Though every single one of their other physical traits probably came in a close second.

"Amanda Ripley. Your presence has been logged," the Joe eventually concluded, "Can I be of any help to you today?"

Several awkward moments passed. Apparently it was going to stand there staring at her until she gave it an order. She rose to her feet; hiding obviously wasn't going to do her any more good. "Uh, you can help be by... staying right where you are for now."

Ripley sidestepped out from behind the tool cart, sliding in between it and the metal shelving unit next to it, out into the open. She kept her wrench at the ready as she walked over to the intercom terminal by the doorway. The Working Joe followed her with its eyes, but complied with the order she'd given it and stayed put. She flipped the switch underneath the wall-mounted microphone.

"Hello?" Ripley leaned in to speak into it. "Anyone up there?"

There was a burst of static before Garcia's voice made it through the speaker. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm back. You're okay, then?"

"No thanks to you," she spat, "What the fuck was that, Garcia?"

"I saw it move and... and I couldn't _think!_ I just had to get the fuck out of there! You have no idea what I've seen those things do!"

"Oh, I have some idea," Ripley murmured darkly.

"Besides, you're fine, right? It's not attacking you!" his voice quavered so badly that she almost wanted to forgive him for leaving her to die. Almost.

"Just keep a close eye on things here in case that changes, will you?"

"Sure. Sure, Ripley. Garcia out."

She breathed in a sigh and cradled her forehead in one hand. Her headache was only getting worse as time went on. Well, she might as well eat what he'd brought her before getting back to work; with any luck that would help relieve her headache. Extracting the replacement part for Samuels shouldn't take long. After all, she wouldn't have to worry about keeping donor android's systems intact or closing it back up when she was finished.

Ripley crouched to grab the foil ration pouch and water bottle. The bottle's cap slipped out from between her fingers as she tried to remove it; she abruptly realized that she still had a fair amount of blood coating her hands. She paused and looked around for something to clean herself up with. When nothing immediately presented itself, she gave up and wiped her hands on the sides of her flight suit instead.

The water was lukewarm, but she couldn't have cared less; her parched tongue and throat absorbed it like a dry sponge. She drank until she had to pause for breath, and found that three-quarters of the bottle was already gone. Next came the foil pouch. A dehydrated emergency ration wafer - supposedly caramel toffee flavor if the label was to be believed - she ate it in four bites and tried to ignore the papery aftertaste.

The Working Joe that had just awakened seemed content to stand there watching her eat, its luminous gaze never leaving her face. At least it wasn't constantly spewing those annoying Seegson adverts anymore; apparently that had been another one of APOLLO's charming additions to the Working Joe's behavior routines. Ripley finished the water in one last swig and set the bottle back down next to the doorway.

"You don't have to stay standing there, I guess," she told the Joe as she walked over to retrieve the collection of tools laying next to Samuels. "Just... try to stay out of the way."

"Understood," it said. It apparently took this as an order to immediately move from its current position and sidestepped out from between its two of its fallen comrades on either side of it.

Ripley bent down and collected everything she'd need to perform her second impromptu surgery - luckily neither of her patients had to worry about a risk of infection from shared surgical tools. She walked over to the row of inoperative Working Joes next, gazing down at them with an appraising eye. She'd need one with, at minimum, a fully intact torso and unbroken spine. One Working Joe a few feet away fit the bill. It was missing both legs and had a sizeable crater in the left half of its face but everything she needed should still be intact.

If the internal company messages she'd read on the station were to be believed, Seegson had been pilfering trade secrets from the larger synthetic producers for years. Ripley hoped that they'd copied _enough_ ; she could modify the parts to some extent, but she was no miracle worker. The power cables needed to be a close analog to Weyland-Yutani's if they were going to work.

She gingerly lowered herself next to the donor Working Joe and began methodically removing its brown shirt. She was a bit surprised at how little discomfort she felt doing so this time; with its blue-white rubbery skin, it felt more like undressing a doll than a person. Once she had the uniform undone and the sleeves removed, she flipped the android onto its stomach and readied her utility knife.

"That's a dangerous item you have there," a quiet, droning voice said from over her shoulder. She startled and turned.

The activated Working Joe was looming over her, staring down at the amateur surgery that was about to begin. "I hope you aren't planning to damage Seegson property with that."

If she didn't know any better she would have called its gaze baleful. It had to have been the angle of the light and her imagination, as its model possessed neither facial expressions nor the emotions that accompanied them. Its eyes were still white, though. Still friendly. But she knew how quickly that could change.

"Uh... no," she explained. "No, I'm not going to damage them. I'm... I'm repairing them."

"You are a licensed Seegson cybernetics specialist?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm a cyberneticist," she kept her face carefully blank as she spoke the lie. Working Joes probably weren't sophisticated enough to read very far into human facial expressions, but she wasn't taking any chances. "Here, look at this."

Ripley pointed to the donor android's crushed skull. Its brain had clearly been destroyed; its circuits were visibly smashed and coated in clotted white blood, bashed in by some kind of blunt weapon. Maybe even a victim of Ripley's maintenance jack.

"Its processor's been smashed. I can't repair this one, so I'm harvesting parts from it to repair the others."

The Joe tilted its head as it looked over its fallen comrade for a long moment. There was no trace of sadness, sentimentality or any other emotion in its voice when it spoke. "I agree. This one is beyond repair."

"Good," she sighed, "Great. Glad you're on board. I'm getting started, then."

The Joe watched impassively as she cut into its comrade's back. Ripley tried to follow the same formula for success that she had used with Samuels; creating the same incision pattern, aiming for the same general area of its torso. The donor android's skin was much thicker and tougher than Samuels' had been; more like cutting into leather boot than anything else. Once she had its back opened she saw that its skeletal structure was also radically different than her friend's had been. No ribs, no joints, no spine - its chest cavity was protected by a solid steel casing. A twinge of self-doubt tugged at her thoughts.

The Working Joe was still standing behind her, watching. She imagined it observing her hesitation and recalculating her level of competence with every pause.

Suddenly it spoke up in its low, distorted voice. "Its arms appear undamaged."

"Yeah, they do," she turned around to look up at it again. What was it getting at?

The Joe pointed to the tattered stump of its right arm. Now that it had been active and moving about for a while, blood had started leaking from it in a slow drip. "Will you be harvesting a limb for my repair work?"

"Um..." Ripley supposed she would have to agree to it to keep up the guise of being a Seegson employee, "Yeah, I'll do that next. But first I need to finish repairing the model at the end of the row over there. He needs a new set of primary power cables."

The Joe turned to look at Samuels. "That is a Weyland-Yutani model," it declared.

 _Shit._ She should have been quicker to remember the apparent rivalry that bordered on hatred that existed between the two synthetic makes.

"Is that a problem?" Ripley stated, setting down her tools for a moment to give the Joe her full attention. She hoped that the authority in her voice would keep the Joe from getting too many ideas.

"A WY-sourced power cell will supply an approximately 4.52% higher open circuit voltage than a Seegson-sourced power cell. Therefore, all resistor components should be adjusted to compensate for this."

"Is that so..." Ripley mulled over its answer. That fact had been stated without prejudice, lacking any hint of aggression toward the Weyland-Yutani synthetic in question, so Ripley turned her attention back to her project and allowed the Joe to continue to lurk over her shoulder.

She ended up needing to use the ion torch to burn through part of the donor Joe's chest casing, but once she had that section separated the rest came apart much easier. She was faintly horrified to find that a few components were being held together with actual metal _screws_ (what if one of them came lose? Just let it rattle around inside the Joe's body?) but at least that helped make disassembly a bit easier. The Working Joe's internal organs also looked notably less organic than Samuels', with a greater proportion of metallic, clunky-looking components. She had trouble finding the power cells until she realized that though Seegson had copied the basic concept of dual primary sourcing, they neglected to provide essentials such as insulation for them. She simply hadn't realized what the two rectangular boxes strapped to the inside of the chest casing were. A quick check with her multimeter confirmed what her one-armed 'assistant' had told her; the difference in output from Seegson to Weyland-Yutani was slightly more than 4.5%.

Disconnecting the power cables was a simple task; just a matter of pulling them from the chest, unplugging them from the Joe's skull and threading them back through the casing to free them completely.

"Okay. Done," Ripley sat back on her heels holding a set of fresh power cables and feeling quite proud of herself.

All she had to do now was reconnect them to Samuels, test the power output, and flip the metaphorical switch. Both her anticipation and anxiety were beginning to mount again; she'd reached the final lap and was about to discover in whether anything she'd done over the past five and a half hours had been of any use, or if it had all been in vain.

"Let's finish this," she announced, climbing to her feet, gathering her determination for the home stretch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A disclaimer, in case wasn't already apparent: I am NOT an electrical engineer, nor do I have any real engineering/robotics knowledge beyond what Professor Google and the Weyland Corp. website has taught me. I'm just praying that everything is reading as plausible so far D:)
> 
> Also, what do you guys think of Amanda's new Working Joe friend? Totally harmless and adorable, right? RIGHT???
> 
> Thank you again for reading! It'll probably be a few more days before the next chapter's done. I just REALLY needed to resolve that cliffhanger for everyone before taking a break - I know how frustrating it can be for readers. D:


	4. Chapter 4

Ripley could feel her body nearing exhaustion. As she carried her tools back to her first patient she stumbled over the weight of her own shoes. Her eyes were having trouble focusing. Her headache had receded, but in its place waves of dizziness crested and fell instead. She didn't care. She was going to push through this and get Samuels working again even if it took passing out a few times to get there.

She knelt next to him and carefully peeled away the now blood-soaked jacket she'd draped over his back, then adjusted a few ribs that had shifted out of place. After laying out his new power cables along with the rest of the wiring of his spinal cord, she threaded them through the appropriate gaps into his thoracic cavity and connected them to his power cells. For a moment she considered just plowing ahead and reconnecting power to the final port in his brain stem; then she thought about how horrifying it would be for _her_ to wake up disoriented, mid-surgery, with someone poking around inside her. There wasn't any way for her to know whether synthetics felt that same kind of body horror, but she decided not to risk it. Now was not the time to be getting impatient.

Next, Ripley needed to replace all the pieces of vertebrae she'd removed with the exception of the final two directly under the port. She then popped all his ribs back into their sockets and folded his skin back into place, arranging it as closely as she could to how it had been before she'd cut into him. She'd have to wait to permanently close the incisions though, at least until she knew for sure that the repairs had stuck and no adjustments needed to be made.

The Working Joe had followed her across the room, and through all of this it continued to loom over her like an overbearing parent. Just about the last thing she wanted was for _that_ to be the what Samuels saw when he powered up, so before going any further she addressed the situation.

"Joe, could you go and... I don't know. Sit down somewhere for a while."

"Very well," the Joe intoned as it obediently walked away from her, toward a bench on the far side of the room. To Ripley's dismay it returned a moment later. In the special world of Seegson programming apparently her order translated to 'grab a shop stool to sit on and carry it over to nearly the exact spot you were standing before'. Ripley sighed and decided to just let it go. At least the Joe wasn't in Samuels' direct line of sight anymore. Anyway, she had much, much bigger things to worry about and was anxious to see how many of those worries had been well-founded.

This was it. Moment of truth. She held the end of the power cable in one gloved hand, keeping the back of her friend's head steady with the other. Though she'd tried to wipe the blood from her hands before starting, they'd gone slick and clammy from nervous sweat instead; she had to grip his hair to keep him from slipping.

There was nothing left to do but dive ahead. She leaned in, readying herself for whatever was about to happen.

"Come on, Samuels," she pleaded to him in that last moment, "I need you to wake up. Come on. Please do this for me."

In one single decisive motion she jabbed the cord home.

His body gave a violent heave as though he'd just been kicked in the gut, before it started to spasm. She leaned into him and pressed down, restraining him - even an accidental, glancing blow from him could cause serious injury. From inside his torso came a host of distressing sounds; computerized whirring and chattering, horrible mechanized sputtering and squealing like a wrench being jammed into a oily gearbox... and that was it, Ripley was certain she'd connected something wrong and broken him.

"No, nonono... _shit, please, no..._ " her thoughts raced for some solution, _any solution_ , and came up with nothing; he was shorting out, he was dying, _permanently_ dying, and this time _she_ was the one who had killed him.

But after those first terrifying moments the sounds began to subside, the twitches uniting into coordinated movements. Ripley saw his hands reaching blindly across the floor in front of him, tore off her insulated glove, grabbed the one that was closest and held it tight. It took a frighteningly long time for him to register the touch, but once he did his fingers clenched around hers in return. His grip was just a hair shy of painful. Any tighter and it would've mashed the bones of her knuckles together. She couldn't tell if the force of his grasp came from lack of muscle coordination or simple desperation.

"Samuels, it's me, I'm here," she began whispering, still unsure if he could hear her. If she believed in that sort of thing, this was where Ripley would have started praying.

The sounds in his chest had quieted to a low buzz. His face was turned toward her, one cheek pressed against the steel floor, which allowed her to see his eyelids start fluttering hummingbird-like, a hundred times faster than human reflexes would have been capable of. A moment later his lips began moving too, mouthing soundless syllables.

"Calm down. You're going to be okay," she told him.

Could a synthetic actually panic? Was it real or imitation fear that caused him to grab onto her hand as though he'd drown without it? In that moment Ripley couldn't have possibly cared less. She'd told him he'd be okay because he looked like he needed to hear it.

After a long struggle he finally managed to hold his eyes open, though his pupils were blown too wide, unfocused, seeing nothing. He kept on fighting to speak with little success; only wet, gurgling sounds were escaping his throat but after several attempts Ripley managed to make out one syllable:

"Ri... Rip..."

He'd been trying to speak her name. The realization made something clench inside her chest.

The act of forcing out those sounds seemed to activate some kind of corrective mechanism inside him because, in a sudden rush of movement, he turned away from her, raised himself onto his elbows and disgorged a flood of white hydraulic fluid all over the floor. Ripley's stomach lurched in sympathy, but despite how horrible the action looked (and sounded) she also felt her hopes _leap_ \- she remembered that for synthetics this was a _normal reflex_. If one of them was ever deactivated without following the correct shutdown protocols, they'd need to purge the fluid that had settled and clotted in inappropriate places once they came back online. And Samuels kept on purging, over and over, expelling a smaller volume of fluid each time. Ripley carded her fingers through his thick hair in what she hoped came off as a comforting gesture. Her other hand was still anchored tightly around his and showed no sign of letting go.

The purge reflex forced a few final dry heaves out of him before releasing him from its control. He stayed propped on his elbows for several more seconds, making sure nothing else was coming up, before turning back to face Ripley. He paused once along the way, looking down at the place where their hands intertwined, before resting his head on one of his forearms to avoid the pool of fluid that had seeped underneath him. His eyes had cleared; he was focusing on Ripley's face.

"Hey," she met his gaze with a slightly manic smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes felt hot and swollen and were blinking too fast. "How're you feeling?"

He contemplated the question. Swallowed. "Peachy," he answered with a weak smile of his own.

A spasm of laughter left her - repeating her own words back to her? Seriously, _this_ was when he'd decided to try and grow a sense of humor?

"Didn't think sarcasm was your style," she said, smiling back. She smoothed back the disheveled hair along his temples.

"Amanda... how did you... no, never mind. You made it back... you're all right..." his words were quiet and deliberate as though it still took extra effort for him to form each one, "Did... you manage to speak with APOLLO?"

The question landed an immediate damper on her mood. For all he knew the two of them were still on Sevastopol, camped out in one of the diagnostic labs in Seegson Synthetics. The job of breaking all of the news to him had fallen on Ripley.

"Yeah," she told him. Instead of his face, she watched the movement of her fingers as they raked through his hair, carefully tucking it behind his ear, "Yeah, I did."

The forced calm in her voice must have told him volumes. He needed no further information to work out that something had gone horribly wrong.

"What... happened?"

She fiddled with his hair for another moment, fixing a lock that had gotten stuck to his forehead with his own white blood before drawing back, giving his hand a brief squeeze before finally letting go.

"The creature," she began with a steadying breath, "There was more than one. There were _a lot_ more than one."

His expression darkened, brows furrowing. "So APOLLO hasn't lifted the lockdown... and the Working Joes are still hostile. We need to leave, Amanda, as soon as possible, and get back to-"

He began to stir, but froze at the sharp interruption of her voice.

"There's more."

This was the first time Ripley had attempted to put everything that had happened to her into words. Emotional awareness was not her forte, not by any measure, but even she realized that this was not going to be easy. Better to start slow. Just the basics. The details could come later, once she'd had time to process them herself.

"Samuels," she began, "We aren't on Sevastopol anymore. We're on a ship called the _Esmeralda_. The station's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?"

"I mean _gone._ Destroyed. Fell into the fucking gas giant... along with the _Torrens_ ," when her voice began to waver, she paused for breath. She shook her head, not in denial, but from that absurd hope that doing so would stop some of the images from flooding back into mind. "Everyone's gone, Samuels."

_Everyone but us,_ was the unspoken conclusion. Ripley drew back as he grew somber, and she closed her eyes for a moment of respite. When she opened them again, he was gazing down at the floor.

"How are you doing, really?" she asked quietly, "Tell me if there's anything I can adjust. Otherwise I should... close you up."

His response came in a flat murmur; unusual for his typically deep, rich voice. "I'm detecting a... slight power drain through my primary routing. My secondary power cell is also offline, but there's not much you can do to fix that."

"Why not?"

"It's ruined. APOLLO was specifically targeting my power systems when it attacked me. Frankly I'm amazed that any of my cells are still functional at all."

"That power drain you're feeling is from the replacement cord I used," Ripley explained, "It has a lower capacity than your original. Had to ramp down your output. Anything else?"

Ripley pulled herself to her feet as he considered the question, grabbing the edge of a nearby shelf to do so. She approached the nearest tool cart, passing the Working Joe sitting silently, ramrod-straight, and watchful on its shop stool. It tracked her with its gaze as she passed, but made no other move. She wondered just how much it understood of the conversation happening in front of it.

"No, I don't think so," Samuels concluded as she searched among the tools, "The rest of the damage will self-repair over the next few days."

"Rest of the damage?" Ripley opened a drawer and found a light-duty staple gun. She examined it, turning it over a few times; this was probably the best they could hope for.

"Minor wiring corrosion, file corruption, those kinds of things."

Ripley knelt back down next to him with the staple gun, holding it out for his approval. "This okay?"

His gaze was solemn. "That should be fine, yes." It flickered up from the item in her hand back to her face. "I didn't know you had cybernetics experience, Amanda. Your ICC profile never mentioned it."

"I took a class that covered the basics. Never had a chance to actually use it before now, but it came back pretty quick." As she told him this she reached for his back, drawing the skin together with one hand as she readied the staple gun with the other. Her statement was more of a partial truth though; she'd been recalling her training quite frequently on Sevastopol, drawing on it every time she'd decided where to aim her shotgun to dispatch a Working Joe. She paused to flash him a brief smile. "Just like riding a bicycle. Tell me if any of this hurts."

She began with one of the smaller secondary incisions. While pinching the skin together, she pressed the staple gun against his back and pulled the trigger. With a sharp metallic **_tck_** the first staple was ejected into his skin. He didn't flinch and said nothing, which she took as a positive sign. She let go of him for a moment; the staple didn't budge and his skin showed no sign of tearing so she kept going, placing three or four staples per centimeter along the length of the incision.

"I'm sorry about all this, Amanda," he spoke up halfway through the procedure. She tilted her head to peer down at him; he'd gone back to staring at the floor.

**_Tck_** \- another staple. "Sorry for what?"

"I wouldn't have wanted you to have to see me in... this kind of state," his voice still held that uncharacteristic flatness; it was little more than a dull murmur. The contrast between it and his usual practiced, friendly affect was jarring. Ripley frowned to herself as he kept talking. "I realize it must have been difficult for you to deal with me after what happened on the station."

_Deal with me?_ Ripley paused at that, rocking back on her heels to get a better look at him. He neglected to meet her gaze this time. "Samuels, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"What I mean is... well. After being repeatedly attacked by the androids on Sevastopol, it can't be pleasant for you to be forced to dwell on this reminder of what I am. If you'd rather I finish the rest of these repairs on my own I would understand."

Did he actually just... apologize for _being an android_? Yes, he did, and okay, that was something that needed to stop right fucking now. Ripley set down the staple gun and fixed her full attention onto him.

"Samuels, look at me." He reluctantly lifted his eyes to meet hers and found her frowning fiercely

"That was the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say," she chided, refusing to release his gaze, "So, since I have a lot of respect for you, I'm going to pretend you only said it because you're still loopy from having just come back online. Now shut up and let me finish."

The corners of his eyes lifted, a hint of a smile. Success. Ripley picked up the staple gun and went back to work, though she kept muttering under her breath, "You actually think I'd compare you to a Seegson model? Christ, what a fucking joke," she completed another line of staples, finishing up the last of the secondary incisions. "It's like... I don't know. Like trying to compare a Ferrari to a fucking Matchbox car. No; it's even _worse_ than that. It's like putting the Matchbox car next to an FTL starship."

That brought a chuckle out of her friend, "I had no idea you had such a penchant for flattery either, Amanda."

"I'm a woman of many talents," Ripley grinned in satisfaction as she picked up the last two missing pieces of vertebrae. "Tilt your head forward." He complied and she snapped them in place, one-two, easy as pie. Then she picked up the staple gun and began sealing that long, final incision running down his spine. She began at the bottom, carefully squeezing the skin together before placing each staple, making sure to check frequently that they were holding everything together. She had this process down to a science now and breezed through the climb from back to shoulders to neck. To place the last few staples she parted the hair at the nape of his neck with two fingers to prevent it from getting trapped. **_Tck_** \- she pulled the trigger one last time and felt the final staple sink home.

After setting the down staple gun, she laid her palms on the plane of his back and tested the elasticity of the incision by pulling in several directions, then squeezing it together until the skin bunched and folded. Everything stayed securely in place. She noticed that his skin had warmed now that he was awake; it felt much closer to human body temperature than before, but it wasn't quite there yet. An odd impulse struck her and she ran one thumb up the ladder of staples; it formed an interesting contrast of texture and temperature, hard ridges and yielding skin, cold metal and warm polyurethane.

"Well... I think that's it," she concluded, resting her hands on her knees. "How does it feel?"

"Let's try it out," Samuels said, propping his arms against the floor and gingerly raising himself into a seated position. He crossed one arm in front of his chest, than the other, stretching and testing the seam in his back. Ripley chewed at her lip as she watched for any problems - it was both exciting and nerve-racking to see him moving under his own power after having hovered over his inert body for those long, tense hours.

"Not quite fresh-from-the-factory-new, but awfully close," he turned and smiled at Ripley. To her relief, he was sounding much closer to his usual self. "Thank you, Amanda. Sincerely, thank you."

"Don't mention it," she gathered up her tools and set them on one of the metal shelves behind her. "I'll need to make good on a _lot_ more favors before I'll get anywhere close to paying you back for everything you've done."

She picked up the grey undershirt she'd stripped him of, stored neatly folded on a shelf behind them. By the time she turned around his long face was growing somber again, so she dropped the shirt in his lap before he could delve too far into brooding. "Here. This is the only one that's still clean."

Samuels unfolded it, then looked down at his chest - coated in a layer of sticky, half-dried hydraulic fluid. "I'm not sure hygiene is such an issue at the moment."

Damn it, he was right. She'd never managed to find any shop rags to clean him (and herself) up after the mess they'd created.

"Shit. Let me look around. There's got to be rags or towels around here somewh-" Ripley pulled herself to her feet and turned around just in time to come face-to-face with the rubbery hand thrusting a fistful of rags in her direction. She recoiled with a yelp.

"Will these be adequate?" the Working Joe droned.

" _Yes_ , thank you; but _Jesus Christ_ , say something before you do that next time!" Ripley's nerves were strung out enough as it was without any additional surprises. She snatched the bundle of rags out of the Joe's grasp and whirled back around to hand them to Samuels. But before she could do so she stopped short, taken aback by the look on his face.

Samuels was probably the most expressive synthetic she'd ever met - she'd seen him happy, impatient, worried, even frightened, but she'd never seen him like _this_ \- he was openly _glaring_ at the other android with a look of pure, tempered hatred. The expression lasted for only a moment though; his face quickly smoothed into a mask of calm scrutiny. He took one of the rags she offered, keeping his gaze locked on the figure standing behind her.

Maybe she'd been wrong in assuming the Working Joe would be the one causing the trouble.

As he wiped the blood from his chest, Samuels shook his head in resignation. "I still have quite a bit of catching up to do, don't I?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Phew!* I'm not sure why that chapter was so difficult for me to finish, but here it is. Samuels!!! This should also be the end of the gross stuff for the foreseeable future, so there's that plus as well.
> 
> Thank you again for reading - and a special, huge, *enormous* thank you for all the supportive comments - this feels very cliché to say but there have been countless times during the past week when the only thing keeping me writing was knowing that, somewhere out in the ether, people are enjoying this story.


	5. Chapter 5

Her work was going much faster now with another pair of helping hands. Well, it was more like another pair _and a half_ ; though some of the hands involved had been less than enthused about their project.

"I would like to state one last time, for the record, that I'm still not entirely clear on why we're doing this..."

Samuels held the disarticulated android arm in place as Ripley tinkered with its shoulder hydraulics and musculature, connecting them to the Working Joe that would become its new owner.

"Just trust me on this," Ripley told him as she finished fusing the new bicep to its attachment point on the Joe's chest casing. She then turned to the third helping hand in this equation: the Working Joe itself, sitting cross-legged and calmly handing her tools with its left hand as she attached its new right arm.

"Pliers. Yes, that one." A pale, plastic hand placed the tool in her palm. She used it to pin the next slippery bundle of muscle into place. " You do trust me, don't you?"

Samuels blinked at her. "Of course I do, Amanda, but that's beside-"

"Then _just trust me_."

This mollified him, at least enough so that he went quiet again. Ripley was too engrossed in her work to give him her full attention. This section of the Joe's musculature contained extremely delicate wiring; the slightest mistake on her part could sever one of the tiny wires and leave the arm permanently weakened, next to useless. She wasn't completely sure how the Working Joe would fit into their eventual escape plan, but since it had given no sign of being anything but compliant, repairing it seemed like the least she could do.

Besides that, the excitement of getting Samuels working again had given Ripley a definite second wind - she may as well harness her newfound energy and do something constructive with it. This also gave her a chance to fill Samuels in with a more detailed account of everything that had happened after he'd gone... inoperative. What APOLLO had told her. Finding the nest. The fate of the _Anesidora_ , Sevastopol Station, and finally the _Torrens_. Her suicidal escape into the vacuum of space and eventual awakening here; a hostage, but alive just the same.

During her explanation Samuels had said surprisingly little, only asking a few basic questions of her, definitely nothing emotionally charged. Maybe he needed time to process it all just as much as Ripley did. Silence had reigned for most of the time they'd been working, save for the hum of the ship, the hiss of her ion torch and Ripley's terse orders.

"When was the last time you got any rest, Amanda?" Samuels' voice broke the silence, a gentle nudge toward reason.

She lifted her soldering iron just long enough to roll her eyes at the ceiling. "I stopped to eat a while ago."

"And how long did that take? Two minutes? Five?"

He wasn't buying her excuses. Despite the resilient front she displayed, Ripley must've looked _exactly_ as healthy and chipper as she felt.

The passing glimpse she'd gotten of her appearance in the bathroom mirror had _not_ been pretty. She already knew that her face was bruised and scraped to hell and that swaths of dried blood were caked into her hair and clothing, but she wondered just how much worse she looked after spending a day crawling around on the floor getting covered in hydraulic fluid. Samuels was just concerned about her; she should make an effort to be more patient with him. Of all the people who'd made overtures of concern toward Ripley in her life (first social workers and teachers, more recently Company Psych Eval specialists), Samuels was one of the few who she suspected might actually mean it.

"Look, I get where you're coming from, but I really don't want to stop here," Ripley grabbed the next bundle of muscle in the jaws of her pliers as she readied her ion torch with her other hand. A flick of a dial narrowed the flame into a thin blue needle. As she began fusing the part into place wisps of grey smoke rose into the air, stinging her sinuses. "I'd like to get as far as possible before they kick me out of here for the night."

"You shouldn't be working yourself into exhaustion, Amanda," Samuels countered with a slight huff of exasperation, "Besides that, how can you be sure that they're planning to release you at all? What's to stop them from locking you in here with your projects for the duration of the journey?"

That... was actually a very valid point. Valid enough to give her pause and set down her tools. She looked over at him, her brows furrowing in consideration. Which option did the Captain plan to take - leave Ripley locked in the maintenance shop, or cart her off somewhere else, maybe back to the storage closet where she'd first woken up? The two possibilities held very different implications.

"You're right," Ripley conceded with one curt nod. "We need to find out what they're planning to do with me."

Time for another intercom session. With that decision made, Ripley pulled herself back to her feet. Samuels followed a moment later, or at least _tried_ to; when attempting to stand he seemed to have just as much, if not _more_ difficulty than she did. His movements were slow and cautious, as though afraid of jostling something out of place. Ripley's arm darted out to grab his shoulder when it looked like he was tilting to one side.

"I'm fine," he assured her, "I still need to recalibrate a few motor systems to run on lower power settings, that's all."

She shot him a skeptical frown - that had _better_ be all it was - but relented and released his arm.

"And YOU stay put," Ripley saved the worst of her ire for the synthetic still sitting on the floor, "I don't want to see you trying to move that arm yet."

"I understand," the Joe intoned. Its intact arm rested on one knee; it left the other hanging limp. Its head swiveled to keep its gaze locked on Ripley as she and Samuels approached the intercom, but it otherwise remained completely still.

Once they reached their destination, the two of them flanked either side of the intercom, and Ripley immediately reached out to flip the switch.

"Hello? Somebody? Garcia? Can I get some help here?"

The gap of static that followed seemed to last even longer this time; but when it subsided and a crackling voice spoke through the speaker, it wasn't Garcia on the other side of the line. Of course not. Ripley's luck had been running too high for too long for someone halfway tolerable to have answered her.

"Hello again, Miss Ripley," said the Captain, smooth and cordial as usual, "And hello to our new guest, too! Up and about and in pretty good shape, from the way things look up here."

"Yes, sir. Ripley has done a remarkable job with my repairs," Samuels chimed in. He leaned in closer to the microphone while keeping a hand on the wall to maintain his balance, "My name is Samuels, and I am a representative from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. May I ask with whom I am speaking?"

Stating his name, establishing rapport with their captors: a classic hostage negotiation tactic. The corner of Ripley's mouth quirked upward; she liked people that got down to business quickly and Samuels was certainly one of those people. The hoped-for response to this tactic, however, wasn't usually a round of laughter.

"Cute," the Captain said after his laughter had trailed off into a chuckle, "Most cargo I deal in either can't ask questions or is too smart to try. Anyway, what can I do for you, Ripley?"

Samuels drew back from the intercom. His face was blank, but she knew he was crestfallen; that was supposed to be his moment to shine. Ripley felt her lips tighten. She shot him an apologetic glance before leaning in to speak in his stead.

She stated her demands clearly and brusquely. "Before I go any further here, I want information. I think I've proven I'm valuable enough to deserve that much. I want to know exactly how long our trip's going to take, and what you're planning to do with me during downtime."

The Captain considered this for a moment, making little murmurs and hums of deliberation to himself, "Well, for starters, that first question's privileged info. Sorry, Ripley," he told her , "As for your second question... why do you ask? You getting restless for a break?"

"It _has_ been almost eleven hours, Captain," Ripley reminded him, before pausing for an extra beat. An idea struck her and she seized onto it. "...I'm getting pretty tired, but I don't know if I can sleep in the same room with these things."

Samuels' face fell in dismay at this, so she tilted her head just far enough to shoot him a wink - _obviously_ she didn't mean _him_. No need to worry; she had everything under control now.

"If you're so worried about that, maybe you should've been more _thorough_ in your work and included a few temperament adjustments, Miss Engineer," she could practically hear his sneer of disdain. He harbored no sympathy for delicate, squeamish people. "...But I may be able to spare someone to come down and let you out for a bit. We'll see. Captain out."

Then the intercom went dead, leaving the captives alone once again in the steel cavern of the maintenance shop. Ripley was surprised by how well the exchange had gone; she folded her arms in front of her chest with a faint smile. The 'reverse psychology' strategy was bound to work at least _some_ of the time.

Her companion, however, did not seem nearly as pleased.

"I don't know _what_ you thought you were doing, Ripley," apparently, if she pissed Samuels off enough, he reverted to knowing her on a last-name basis only, "Why in the world were you purposely _aiming_ to stay locked in here?"

"Calm down. It'll be fine," she felt another eye roll coming on and turned around just in time to keep him from seeing it. She walked back over to the Working Joe sitting mid-surgery in the center of the room, "More time in here means more time for us to prepare for getting the hell _out_. There's tools. There's vents. It's a lot better than where they stuck me before."

Samuels followed a step behind her. "I shouldn't have to remind you of the danger present here as well."

"What, this guy?" the Working Joe tracked her with its gaze as she knelt next to it, "Joe, what are you planning to do when I'm finished repairing you?"

"Once I am repaired I will be capable of assisting you in a wide range of tasks," it told her in the same monotonous, droning voice as always.

The Joe's voice emanated from somewhere inside its mouth, but its lips and jaw never moved. Its face stayed frozen in a single slack-jawed expression. Apparently the techs at Seegson had decided that if they couldn't convincingly replicate the movements and intricacies of speech, it was better to just discard the entire concept. Ripley was almost grateful for it. She couldn't imagine them succeeding in doing anything but making their androids somehow even creepier.

"Well, as long as your idea 'assist' doesn't change to 'strangle'... I think we'll keep getting along just fine," Ripley concluded. She thought about giving it a little good-natured pat on the back for good measure, paused, and thought better of it. Her point proven nonetheless, she turned back to Samuels. He was still refusing to sit back down and stood over them glowering at the other synthetic. _His_ lips had no problem animating into a completely convincing frown of distaste.

"Seegson was building them _without behavioral inhibitors_ Ripley; you know that! But what that also means is that, since _I_ was manufactured to much higher standards, I won't be able to relax for a single moment with _this thing_ within fifty meters of you."

He sighed then; the sound seemed to drain all of the frustration out of him. Only weariness remained behind. One of his hands rose to grip his temple. "As a human, I don't think you can understand what that feels that like."

 _This thing?_ Ripley's brows furrowed; she was struck by the hypocrisy in that term. Sure, humans treated synthetics like inanimate objects all the time, but Ripley had always assumed they held more respect than that for each other. Her first impulse was to call him out on it, and she nearly did; her lips fell half-open, but she closed them again before she could start running her mouth. That debate could wait. Preferably until a time when a multitude of threats _weren't_ looming over their heads, aggravating Samuels' very functional behavioral inhibitor and exacerbating the problem.

"No. I guess I don't understand," Ripley said instead. She picked up her torch, turned up the fuel dial and relit the flame with one flick of the starter. "Sorry."

Samuels returned to his post a moment later, subdued, kneeling next to her and grabbing hold of the Joe's arm again. "It's quite all right. I don't resent having an inhibitor. It just makes things more difficult for me at the present moment."

She made a noncommittal hum as she worked, still mulling over the idea internally. A minute later, she realized, "I know that I would resent it."

"Why do you say that?" He sounded perplexed by the idea. Guilelessly curious. He really was too kind for his own good. Ripley raised an eyebrow at him.

"Because people are assholes. If I had something installed in my head that forced me to care about the well-being every jerk I came across, I'd be fucking pissed." Her thoughts turned to her situation in general, then to the specific jerks that she was now at the mercy of. Who goes and rescues someone in as bad of shape as she was, then turns around and forces them to work to stay alive?

When Ripley pressed the next component into place against the Joe's casing, it was with a _bit_ more force than was strictly necessary. "People. Are. Assholes."

Samuels chuckled. "That may be true. But I've met a few whose company wasn't _too_ unpleasant."

He was looking straight at Ripley as he said it, wearing that warm, amiable expression that his face had probably been designed to shape itself into. Ripley almost wanted to smack it off of him; nobody had the right to be that damn _nice_ , especially toward someone as callous and ill-natured as she was. Ripley frowned at him and went back to work.

She didn't' get very far - a shrill beep filled the air a second later and all three captives turned toward the room's entrance to see the hatch slide aside.

In came two figures. First came the Captain, wearing a fresh outfit and looking significantly less ragged around the edges, though the same dirty baseball cap was still perched on his head and he'd kept his stubble intact. His arrival honestly surprised Ripley; she'd been certain that he was purposely trying to make her feel like an unimportant appliance toiling away out of sight. Next came a crew member that Ripley hadn't yet met; a woman wearing a grey jumpsuit with its sleeves neatly tied at her waist. As she entered the room, she immediately stepped to one side, placing her back against the protection of the wall.

"Good evening, Miss Ripley. Or is it morning? Who can tell out here anyway, am I right?" the Captain laughed at his own stupid joke he strode into the room. He was in far too good a mood for Ripley's taste. "If you'll come with my associate here, she'll be able to escort you to our restroom facilities."

The woman in question remained silently aloof as she was mentioned. She had a soft oval-shaped face and widely-spaced doelike eyes; Ripley would have called her appearance gentle if not for the sleepless, wary expression she wore. The tight black braids of her hair were pulled back and contained in a knot at the nape of her neck that was just as neat as the one securing her outfit in place.

"And what occasion brought you here, Captain?" Ripley exhaled the question through gritted teeth as she dragged herself upright.

"Nothing to worry about. Routine inspection," he kept his hands tucked into his pockets as he paced the room, his stance casual and relaxed. Unlike Garcia, he seemed completely indifferent to the presence of a formerly homicidal Working Joe. However, Ripley _did_ also notice the long, dark shape of the shotgun now strapped against his back. Having one of those on hand could do wonders for your confidence. "I need to make sure everything you've done looks up to par. If it does, I'll drop off some new projects for you to work on."

Ripley frowned into the Captain's back. She didn't like the idea of leaving Samuels alone with this man, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why. The feeling didn't make much sense. Samuels was the Captain's meal ticket; he wasn't about to do anything that would damage his own investment. But whether Ripley liked it or not, there wasn't much she could do to stop this from happening.

"What kind of new projects?" she asked as she made her way across the room. When she reached the doorway, the woman standing there grabbed both her wrists and wrapped a long plastic ziptie around them several times before pulling the cord taut. Ripley was effectively restrained once again.

"You'll see," the Captain was in the middle of examining the set of tools Ripley had used to make her repairs. He toed the utility knife a few inches across the floor with the tip of his boot, then spared a momentary glance toward his underling. "Give me ten minutes."

"Yes, sir," the woman acknowledged brusquely, then grabbed Ripley's elbow and began pulling her out of the room. She caught Samuels' eyes one last time before she was dragged out of sight - he nodded once to reassure her, his jaw firmly set, looking resolute.

It was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I discovered something new about myself while writing this - I love to annoy Samuels. That is all. uwu
> 
> (The next chapter will be up momentarily; I decided at the last minute to split these two.)


	6. Chapter 6

Her guide set a demanding pace as she pulled Ripley along the corridor. The speed kept Ripley disoriented and prevented her from talking; she was forced to spend most of her concentration on coordinating her feet to keep up without tripping. They went up a set of stairs, rounded one sharp corner and before she knew it, they were back at the same bathroom she'd visited the first time. Its hatch automatically swept aside as they approached, revealing the same familiar cramped, musty space with toilet, shower stall and sink with wall-mounted mirror. Ripley's guide hauled her completely through the doorway before releasing her. The abrupt stop triggered another round of vertigo, but once it passed and her balance steadied again, Ripley's eyes fixed onto the black square of the air vent embedded in the ceiling.

"Do _not_ get any ideas," her captor made sure to tell her; she'd immediately tracked Ripley's gaze up to that potential escape route. The woman had locked the room's hatch within moments of entering and now stood guarding it, feet apart in a defensive stance. One of her hands was hooked into her pocket; the other rested on the grip of the pistol holstered at her hip.

"I suppose it's too much to ask for a little privacy," Ripley muttered, mostly to herself.

"Good guess." Every word her captor spoke came out harsh and biting, as though it took an effort for the woman to restrain a string of insults from slipping out alongside each one. Her stoic, businesslike demeanor had given way to a kind of restrained vindictiveness now that her commander was out of earshot. Ripley could only wonder at what she'd done to earn such animosity. "You have ten minutes."

Ripley heaved in an defeated sigh and shuffled over to the toilet. At least they'd bound her hands in _front_ of her this time rather than behind her back; she didn't have to spend time trying to wrestle her arms under her legs. She was also able to manipulate her clothing and clean herself up with much less difficulty now that she'd had a bit of practice. The act of being watched still turned her stomach; she felt her face flush in embarrassment and anger, but at least it was another woman watching this time. Unpleasant, but worlds better that smug, conniving, unmistakably _male_ gaze she'd been forced to endure before.

Once she'd finished, Ripley shuffled her way over to the sink to wash her hands. She had time to spare and used it to scrub the raw, red burns around her wrists that had been left by her first set of restraints. The cold water stung as it seeped into them, but the wounds were shallow and should heal quickly. The substance she was now most likely to get inside them was synthetic blood (supposedly non-toxic, if one believed the manufacturers' claims); she didn't waste time worrying about that.

From her now-clean hands, her gaze rose to look into her reflection. Well, that settled things; she really _did_ look like shit. No wonder Samuels seemed concerned. There wasn't much she could do about the bruising or the dark circles beneath her eyes (grown steadily darker since she'd arrived on Sevastopol), but she could at least scrub off the layers of sweat and oil and blood - both red and white varieties.

With a twist of a knob she turned the faucet's flow slightly higher, glancing momentarily at her captor; she was still glaring at Ripley but showed no sign of stopping her. Ripley cupped the water between her hands, lifted it to her forehead, and let it run down her entire face. As the grime coating her skin loosened she almost groaned at the stark, purifying pleasure of it. She kept on pooling the water and pressing it against her face, letting it rinse her skin. Some of it ran in between her lips and met her parched tongue. Stagnant and metallic, but it was still _water_ , and was much colder than the bottle she'd been given before. After that she spent the next few minutes cupping the water into her mouth instead, swallowing it in large messy gulps that spilled over her chin, and kept on drinking until her stomach gave out protesting pangs of nausea.

It was rather difficult to manage with her wrists bound together, but she took a dab of hand soap from the dispenser and managed to rub it into a froth between her palms and use it to scrub her face clean. After she'd rinsed, as an afterthought, she twisted her hands up behind her head to remove the tie of her ponytail. Her hair fell onto her shoulders in limp, greasy waves. She bent over the sink, cupped more water in her hands and used it to rinse the mats of blood out of her hair. As she did her fingers brushed over what had probably been its main source - a large lump on her scalp near her hair's part.

" _Ow..._ fuck..." her hands jerked back as soon as she touched it.

She tilted her head toward the mirror in an attempt to get a look at the lump, but it was no use; the dark locks of her hair made it impossible to see anything. Maybe _this_ had been the source of the headaches and vertigo all along; a concussion didn't seem at all unlikely after everything Ripley been through. She seemed to remember something about being clipped by a speeding transit car at one point, but couldn't quite recall if that been _before_ or _after_ she'd fallen down the elevator shaft. That... wasn't very reassuring, no matter which way she spun it.

Maybe she should also try and do an overall hair washing to better clean the wound. But as Ripley was figuring out the best way to go about doing so with a pair of bound hands, the woman standing guard over her took a warning step toward her.

"Okay, that's enough. Your ten minutes is up."

As Ripley turned from the sink her hair dripped patters of moisture onto the floor."Can I at least dry off first?"

The other woman shifted her weight from one boot to the other; a hint of agitation slipping out. "Fine. But hurry up."

Ripley did so, grabbing a towel that was sitting crumpled on a shelf to her left and vigorously scrubbing it through her hair until it was no longer sopping. Once she'd finished her captor grabbed hold of her elbow again and pulled her back into the hallway. To Ripley's surprise, she set a walking pace this time instead of the punishing near-jog she'd demanded before. They descended those now-familiar six steps of the staircase; the hatch to the maintenance shop was soon in sight.

"Before I put you back in there I want you to tell me one thing." Her captor suddenly spoke, her voice quiet. Too quiet to be heard by anyone but Ripley.

"...Yeah?" Ripley tried to remain casual despite all her senses shifting onto high alert. Whatever question was coming, this woman _didn't want her superior to hear it_. That fact alone was valuable information, but if Ripley played her cards right, she could learn even more.

The woman turned her gaze fully onto Ripley. The hostility had receded from her wide brown eyes, but her lips were still pulled into a frown. "Are you _actually_ a synthetic technician, or are you just pulling it all out of your ass as you go along?"

If Ripley were being honest, it was a little of both. If she were being _completely_ honest... it was probably more of the latter than the former. But Ripley also seriously doubted that was what her captors would want to hear.

"Yes, I'm _actually_ a tech. I've done maintenance on synthetics for years," Ripley stated firmly. "Why?"

"Nothing." once she had her answer, the woman turned away, her expression closing off again. "That's what I'd thought."

Ripley's brows furrowed. Apparently that had been the _wrong_ answer? She never did figure out what the other woman's issue was; there wasn't time for her to pry any further because they had already arrived back at Ripley's holding cell. Her captor punched in the first passcode in a flurry of fingers, far too quickly for Ripley to follow. She remembered the second one just as quickly, and just like that, they were back inside.

As soon as the second hatch swept aside Ripley's eyes darted to check every corner of the room, searching out any changes. The first ones that she spotted were several large lumps of machinery that now sat on some of the shop benches. A white, plastic crate had also been placed on the floor near the doorway. It held several bottles of water, more emergency ration pouches and one ratty-looking blanket. All the room's former occupants were present and accounted for. The Working Joe sat in exactly the same spot where she'd left it - its head swiveled to watch her enter. The Captain and Samuels were now both standing; it looked like they had been in the middle of a conversation up until the two women returned.

"Welcome back," said the Captain genially. In a show of confidence, he'd been standing with his back to the door (as well as the Joe sitting placidly in front of it), but he turned and smiled as he heard the squeal of the opening hatch. Samuels stood just next to him; leaning back against a table with one hand resting on it in a manner that looked outwardly casual, but that Ripley knew was more for maintaining balance. As Ripley caught Samuels' eyes she felt the tension she'd been holding in her limbs loosen, felt her clenched jaw relax. His expression remained unreadable, however. She couldn't tell whether or not that should worry her.

"So?" she shifted her attention to the Captain instead, "What's the verdict?"

"Well, after looking at the work you've done on the Joe so far, and meeting Mr. Samuels here... I'll admit that I'm impressed." The Captain tucked his hands into his pockets, hesitated, and brought one of them back out again. "...though there _is_ the issue of this cosmetic damage."

To Ripley's disbelief he then grabbed Samuels by the neck; examining him like a farmer would examine a prizewinning steer, feeling the seam stapled along his spine with one index finger. "Yeah, this will hurt resale value for sure."

Samuels did not resist this scrutiny in the slightest. He allowed his head to be tilted into position and remained where he'd been placed. The vacant expression he wore suddenly made complete sense: he'd dissociated. He'd conceded himself to being treated like a mere piece of equipment. Seeing him being manhandled like that made Ripley's fingers itch for her maintenance jack. She wanted a blunt weapon. An _up-close-and-personal_ weapon.

She tried not to let too much of that anger seep into her voice. "I don't know what the hell I could've done differently. You don't have any of the right tools or parts. I had to improvise."

"I know," the Captain released her friend's neck and returned his hand to his pocket as he strolled toward the doorway. "That's why I'm letting you keep your food rations. Just keep the Frankenstein theme to a minimum from now on, will you?"

"Fine," Ripley spat. The Captain drew a pair of wire cutters from his pocket; as he approached, Ripley offered her hands to him and he obligingly severed her plastic bonds.

"Let's see... what time is it now?" he checked the dial of a clunky analog wristwatch, "About 22:00 by my count, how about yours? Never mind, it doesn't matter. Your android friends can help you keep track of time. Sleep well, but I want to see you up and working bright and early tomorrow, Miss Ripley."

As soon as the Captain and his female underling were gone, having closed and locked both of the dual hatches, Ripley turned and marched across the room.

"I told you, Samuels - people are assholes," she growled. She stopped just in front of him, firmly grabbing one of his shoulders to get his attention. "What else did he do to you?"

The physical contact seemed to break him out of a daze. He blinked and focused on her hand first, then her face. "Nothing. We just... spoke."

"About what?" she pressed.

He blinked again before a bit more animation returned to his face; he licked his lips and they twitched upward. " I believe he was trying to ascertain whether or not I was brain damaged."

"Good thing he forgot to check me, then," Ripley stated, completely deadpan. His smile grew and infected her with a little smirk of her own. "But that's not all you talked about."

Ripley felt that, by now, she had a good handle on the way his mind worked. Samuels was not the type to sugarcoat bad news or lie outright (he may have even had programming put in place to prevent exactly that), but he was perfectly capable of a telling a lie of omission, especially if doing so would shield her feelings.

"No, it wasn't," he admitted, just as expected. His eyes uncoupled from hers. He was looking at something lower on her face instead - maybe her scabbed lip. Maybe the purple bruise that had blossomed along her jaw, or her damp, tangled hair. "We also talked about you."

"Okay," she gave his arm an encouraging squeeze.

"He made sure that I was aware of what kind of arrangement he had with you," Samuels elaborated. When his eyes lifted again, they had filled with worry. "Amanda, he knows next to nothing about synthetics, but he _does_ know that I have an inhibitor. That's why he wanted me to know that if you were to sabotage any equipment, or attempt escape, or become uncooperative in any other way, that he plans to have you killed."

Ripley frowned. "So that you'd have to stop me from doing any of those things," she followed the logic to its conclusion.

Samuels nodded. He looked like he was about to start apologizing again, so she stepped in before he could begin.

"Does it help at all if I tell you that I'm pretty sure he's planning to kill me no matter _what_ I do?" Ripley asked with a bleak smile. She almost broke into a full-out laugh - the length of this streak of bad luck was getting absurd even for _her_. "After what happened to Sevastopol, no one's expecting any of us to come back alive. And what's he gonna do with me if he _doesn't_ kill me? Drop me off on the nearest station and send me on my merry way? Might as well march himself right into his fucking jail cell while he's at it."

Samuels pondered this for a moment. Rebalancing equations. "As morbid as that thought is ... it does help. It helps immensely."

"Good," Ripley nodded in grim acknowledgement. "Because I doubt I could pull this off by myself, and I _know_ I'd have no chance in hell of pulling this off if you weren't on my side."

Samuels went abruptly serious. "I'm not about to change my stripes anytime soon, Amanda. I've been on your side since the beginning."

"I know. Just wish I'd figured that out sooner." She had spent far too much of the time that she'd known him on trying to figure out his angle, reading into every word and action, unable to conceive of the notion that his motive could be as pure and straightforward as _just wanting to help her_.

She still wasn't sure how to interpret the warm, earnest gaze he was sending her now, more unwavering and focused than any human's. She glanced away from it, her focus landing on the hand that was still latched onto the grey sleeve of his t-shirt. Where his olive-colored outer uniform had been too large on him, this undershirt felt a hair too small; it fit too snugly around his bicep. His designers had built him perfectly centered between wiry and brawny, as though they'd been aiming to make him appear as average and unremarkable as they possibly could. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. With her own eyes Ripley had seen him crush another android's skull just as easily as she could've crushed a soda can. Maybe, at one time, knowing what kind of strength lay hidden inside his unassuming frame would have been disconcerting, but she certainly didn't feel that way anymore. Quite the opposite. In fact, she should _probably_ avoid dwelling on this line of thought for this long in the future.

"Anyway..." Ripley released his arm and trailed off as she turned away, heading toward the supply crate near the doorway with sudden purpose.

Along the way she passed the Working Joe, still waiting patiently for her to resume her repairs. Its shoulder was split open like an overripe banana, exposing its metallic inner casing and bundles of white muscle and hydraulic tubing. Half of the muscles were still detached and flopping out of the opening in its skin. Its condition didn't seem to be causing it any distress, but as is sat there watching her walk past she couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity.

"Will you be okay here until tomorrow?" she asked it, pausing to rest her hands on her hips.

The Joe gazed up at her for one long moment before answering, "I will be okay here until tomorrow." It was only parroting her own words back at her, but that was enough to subdue her guilt.

"Good," she nodded in approval. "Remember, no moving that arm, though. Got it?"

Its only answer to this was a silent, incandescent stare; she decided this was the closest thing to a cue she was going to get and left it be. When she reached the supply crate she pulled out the blanket that had been rolled up and stuffed into it. If someone told her it had been stashed under someone's bunk for the past several years, she would have believed them; it was a dull, patchy grey color, probably a shade darker than it had originally been due to the layers of dust and oils. She pulled it open, examining the frayed edges with distaste. Well, it was better than nothing. She wrapped it around her shoulders and walked back over to Samuels. Ripley sided up next to him, leaning against the table along with him.

"Sit with me for a while?" she asked after a moment's hesitation. "I actually wasn't lying about not being sure I could sleep. Just about the reason why."

He blinked at her; surprised, but pleased. "I'd be happy to. You look exhausted though, Amanda. I'm sure it won't take too long."

"'Won't take long?'" She laughed at that as she gingerly lowered herself to the floor. "If that's what you think, you're going to regret agreeing to this..." For her, two or more hours to fall asleep was standard on a _good_ day; never mind when she'd recently fought her way through a space station filled with extremely literal nightmare fuel. Samuels followed her onto the floor and sat against the support of one of the shelving units as Ripley reclined further, wrapping the blanket tightly around her body and pillowing her head on one arm.

He draped his arms over his knees, glancing over once as she settled in, but otherwise his attention seemed fixed on the far wall. "Having regrets is actually a rather new experience for me. I'll admit that I have found myself... regretting a few things lately, but I doubt that this will be one of them."

He wasn't even looking at her, wasn't doing anything but sitting and staring contemplatively into space, but as he did his wide mouth was set in a peaceful smile. He looked so happy just _being_ there that Ripley decided to believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the "part 2" of this update! A few more inklings of shippyness, maybe? Yes? :3
> 
> Thank you for your continued interest, everyone! I'm still feeling pretty floored by the response I've gotten so far. Floored and very encouraged. I will try my best to respond to all the wonderful comments, but please forgive me if I've missed yours; I guarantee it wasn't out of anything but my usual absentmindedness.
> 
> I have some big plot decisions to make for the next few chapters (as well as some diagrams to draw... and lots of finer points to iron out...) but stay tuned. Here's to hoping it won't take too long for me to get at least one chapter up for you guys.


	7. Chapter 7

The waves of heat that surrounded her distorted the air in simmering waves. It rose from orange flames that licked at shining columns of black resin. It brought clouds of oily smoke billowing up from the rotting innards of Sevastopol.

She was squeezed in tight; the front of Ripley's flight suit grazed the panels of the fallen ceiling as her back scraped against the floor. The metal that pressed against her was coated in the same glossy resin that covered the crumbling walls and supports. She struggled to pull herself free of the wreckage around her, but her arms had grown so very _tired_ , so overwhelmingly _tired._ They burned at the unwelcome exertion. Her legs were even worse off; they were refusing to move completely, having been pinched between two fallen beams. She felt no pain (at least not _yet_ ) but she couldn’t quite free them, either.

But from somewhere deeper inside the maze of twisted metal, something _else_ was moving. Something that slithered, slow and serpentine, against the steel.

The "something" hissed.

She had to get out of here. _She had to get out._

She pushed and pulled and threw all her weight against the rubble piled around her, but no matter how hard she struggled, her legs remained pinned. _Why the hell weren't they moving?_ She tried to scream for help, and though she felt the air rushing from her lungs, felt her vocal cords rasping themselves raw, no sound emerged.

That was when she heard it. Like a beam of sunlight in a cave, a voice called out to her from the claustrophobic hellscape she was trapped in. Muffled by the layers of wreckage between them and the rumble of distant explosions, someone was calling her name. Ripley twisted her head around, trying to determine the source of the voice. She found him not by sound, but by sight. A few feet away, from underneath a car-sized lump of debris seeped a pool of white blood. There he was, still alive... crushed like an ant under a boot, but still alive…

The ceiling gave a loud, drawn-out groan that ended in a thunderous _crash_. It collapsed on top of her completely, knocking the breath from her lungs, pinning her to the floor. Oh, god, she was trapped too, they were _both_ going to die here, smothered, crushed, smashed into nothing… "Ripley? Ripley! Amanda!"

She couldn't recall closing her eyes, but at the sound of her name they flew open again.

White, fluorescent light flooded into her vision. Ripley blinked furiously until it receded enough for her to make out the vague, translucent shapes that built the world around her. Above her hovered a face; brown eyes, aquiline nose and a worried frown. It was Samuels, his concerned expression backlit by a halo of light. He was pressing her shoulders into the floor to stop her from violently flailing into the tool cart next to them. Her fingernails had clawed deep crescent-shaped marks into his forearms as she tried to escape. Her legs had gotten tangled in her blanket at some point; probably what triggered the nightmare in the first place.

With a tired groan she let her hands flop back to the floor. Her nails must've been digging into him pretty hard; she was lucky they hadn't punctured his skin. Maybe they would have if he were human.

"Samuels. Shit, I'm sorry," she said between gasps of breath.

"Are you all right, Amanda?" his tone was cautious as he drew back. His hold on her loosened, but he kept his hands on her shoulders.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," she let her spine relax against the floor as she drew in slow, controlled breaths to banish the adrenaline from her bloodstream. "I should've known that was coming."

"You had me worried," he told her. "I feared you were having some kind of attack, the way you began screaming and thrashing about." His lips stayed pressed into a flat, tense line. He still hadn't removed his hands.

She grasped his wrists and slowly lifted both his hands from her shoulders. "I'm _okay_ , Samuels," she repeated to him. "I promise." She ran her thumbs over the knobs of his wrists, giving them a little squeeze of reassurance before releasing them. Finally, he pulled his hands back against his sides.

"God," Ripley winced as she shielded her eyes from the glare of the lights, "I don't even remember closing my eyes."

"That isn't surprising. You weren't very coherent at the time," Samuels told her.

"Yeah?" Ripley lifted her hand from her brow just far enough to send him a questioning look, "What kind of stuff was I saying?"

His eyes went distant for a moment. He was recalling their last conversation with the kind of encyclopedic detail only a synthetic could manage. "The last thing you said was, 'that's stupid.' You then closed your eyes, and about twelve minutes later your breathing and heart rate slowed and you had fallen asleep."

A laugh bubbled out of her. That comment sounded pretty typical for her even if the abrupt transition into sleep that came afterward definitely wasn't.

"What was it that was so stupid?" she wondered next.

"Well," he paused to lace his fingers together, "You had asked me about something I told you earlier. About what it was that I regretted."

This was beginning to sound familiar. "Yeah?" Another glance, but she couldn't quite catch his eye. She pressed further. "So what was it?"

"I told you that I had come to regret offering you a seat on the _Torrens_."

"So I was right, then" she scoffed. "That _is_ stupid."

"You met a considerable amount of harm as a direct result of my offer."

Ripley pulled her blanket from her body and tossed it in a crumpled pile next to her. In one abrupt motion she sat upright and fixed her most no-nonsense stare onto him, ignoring her unkempt locks of hair that fell onto her shoulders. "Samuels, if I found out after the fact that the flight recorder had been recovered, and then _lost again_ , without anyone even _trying_ to get me in on it? Christ. Somebody would’ve had their ass personally handed to them by yours truly."

"Are you sure you'd you feel the same way if you knew that the entire team sent to recover it lost their lives?"

He still wasn't looking at her. _Not this again._ Ripley sighed in exasperation.

"No one could've known what was gonna happen on that station. Nobody on _our_ clearance level, anyway. Not even _you_ ," Ripley jabbed an insistent finger into the center of his chest to emphasize her point. He stared down at the intruding digit with furrowed brows. That reaction - startled, perplexed, and faintly robotic - just like that, all of the other points of contention Ripley had gathered diffused into thin air. All she could do was shake her head and try not to smile.

"That's it," Ripley declared, "I'm done listening to you guilt trip yourself. I'm getting back to work." She hoisted herself upright with the help of a nearby cart, recovering her blanket and tossing it onto the nearest shelf as she did so.

His gaze immediately jumped upward from where it had fallen to the floor. "Wait, Amanda. Won't you at least _try_ to get a few more hours of sleep?"

"No." In one practiced motion she pulled her hairtie from her pocket, swept the length of her hair back against her scalp and tied into its usual ponytail. Still a little damp, but now that she wasn't laying on it anymore her hair should dry quickly. "Pretty sure I got as much sleep as I could handle."

"But that was only-"

"You read my ICC profile," she interrupted. A second later she realized just how much that sounded like an accusation. She let her voice soften again. "I’m sure you read my Psych Evals too. So you know I can get by without it.”

"I had been hoping this trip would have changed that," Samuels said. His voice was so quiet, and sounded so rueful that listening to him made her chest ache a little, "I had been hoping it would've changed a great many things for you."

She stared at him long and hard after that comment. Samuels’ concern for her had been clear from the start - and went beyond anything she deserved, in Ripley's opinion - but now she had an idea of just how far his hopes for her had extended past their original mission. But of course those hopes had gone to shit, just like _everything else_ on Sevastopol had gone to shit, and he was growing increasingly depressed because of it.

Depressed over what, exactly? Over some perceived failure on his part? Over the fact that hearing her mother's voice again hadn't cured her insomnia or any of the other issues in her grab-bag of neuroses? That their journey hadn’t healed her wounded heart, hadn't made her whole again?

Touching, but ultimately pointless. She didn't know how to explain to him just _why_ it was so pointless, but it needed to stop, and there was only one surefire way that Ripley had discovered to _make_ him stop.

She marched over to where he sat and extended a hand. "Come on. Are you gonna help me or sit there and watch?"

Samuels didn't need the extra support of her hand anymore. When he stood he did so smoothly, without any sign of unsteadiness. But he placed his larger hand in hers and let her pull him upright just the same.

"So what about you?" Ripley asked to distract him further. Her smile turned wry as they walked over to the patiently waiting Working Joe, "How’d you sleep?"

The bewildered look Samuels gave her in response was extremely satisfying. "Amanda, I thought you were aware that I don't actually need-"

"Just teasing you, Samuels."

"Oh," A pause."I wasn't sure, since you made a similar remark while we were on the _Torrens_."

Her smile widened into a grin. "Yeah... I was teasing you that time, too."

She'd realized he wasn't human within minutes of meeting him, in fact; and once she did, she began a campaign of dropping offhand hints and comments to try and nudge him into fessing up. He never did, but at the same time, he never lied or pretended to be human either. Maybe _that_ was how her soft spot for him had first taken root. Honesty was a virtue after all, perhaps the most important one of all.

"Come on. Let's get to work," she said, giving his back an amiable pat. Honesty might be the most important virtue, but a willingness to pitch in and get your hands dirty would always win points in her book too.

 

\---

 

"Okay," Ripley declared with finality, "NOW you can move your arm. Go on. Test it out."

The Working Joe clenched its new hand into a fist. Its rubbery skin squeaked like a cheap party balloon as its fingers contracted, but the movement itself looked smooth and fluid. No sign of damaged hydraulics or loose connections. It did several more system checks - touching each finger to its thumb, rotating its elbow joint, lifting its arm from the floor - all without a single hitch.

“Well, damn," Ripley crossed her arms over her chest with a smirk, not bothering to hide her pride, "This might be my new fallback profession."

Samuels leaned in to get a closer look at the other android's incision. "Maintaining Seegson synthetics? I'm not sure how much demand you'll find for that skill, especially considering recent events."

"Not just Seegson's," she clarified. "As long as I don't have to work on anyone I know personally. I'd... rather not have to do that ever again. Give it here."

That last comment was directed along with a curt gesture at the Joe, who obediently placed its arm in Ripley's waiting hands. She rotated its arm in wide circular motions that tested the entire orbit of the shoulder joint. More creaks and squeaks ensued as its plastic skin flexed and rubbed against itself.

"Feels a bit rough here," she murmured, going over one spot a few more times, "But it might work itself out. What do you think, Joe?"

"Joint viscosity remains within normal tolerance," said the android blandly.

Ripley nodded in acknowledgement. She had no reason to distrust its word. She released its arm, her fingers moving instead to graze over the stapled seam encircling its shoulder joint. With a light, clinical touch she felt the incision for any irregularities. Samuels kept looking on as she did so, but after a moment of watching, he raised his hand to the back of his own neck to feel his incision. Two of his fingers trailed up the line of staples into his hair and back down again.

Ripley's hands froze. "Are they bothering you?" When his response was a small enquiring hum, she gestured to the nape of his neck. "Your staples. Something wrong?"

He drew back his hand and looked at it in confusion, almost as though it had been acting without his permission. “No, they haven't given me any trouble. I barely notice them, in fact,” he said.

It took slightly more effort than usual to force herself to believe him. "But you're going to tell me if that changes," she said flatly. An instruction, not a question.

"Of course, Amanda."

"All right," Ripley frowned as she turned back to her current project. "That goes for you too, you know. You need to let me know about any problems with that arm."

"I will do so," the Working Joe agreed. Good. She didn't need anyone trying to silently tough things out. Anyone but _her_ , that is. _Ripley's_ damaged components weren’t so easy to repair.

"Okay. Why don't you grab a new shirt, then? From one of the, uh. The others," she turned and pointed with her gaze to the row of deactivated androids behind her. The shirt that the Joe currently wore was missing one sleeve; she assumed it had been ripped away along with its right arm. Maybe the Captain wouldn't raise such a fuss about how the staples looked if she told it to cover them up right away. "Yeah, you go do that. Then Samuels and I need to figure out our next move."

The Joe stood stiffly and spent one more moment flexing its new appendage before it walked over its comrades. It scanned the row of bodies, presumably to determine which outfit looked the most intact. With it gone, Ripley scooted closer to Samuels, filling the space it had occupied in an attempt to give them some semblance of privacy.

“What options have you been considering so far?” he asked her, keeping his voice just above a whisper.

Ripley ran a hand through her ponytail. “Might be easier to ask what I _haven’t_ considered,” she said with a faint trace of a smile. They certainly had an abundance of time on their hands, and Ripley had a _very_ active imagination. “Or maybe the real question is which option has the lowest chance of getting one of us shot?’”

She scanned the room anew; getting a fresh view of things sometimes helped to collect her thoughts. Her gaze landed on the air supply vent in the corner of the room to her right. “The first idea I thought of? Squeezing into that vent up there. Maybe get the Joe to create some kind of diversion while we search the ship for my weapons.”

Samuels turned to the vent in question. “With the camera looking on I doubt we'd have time to disengage the locks, let alone pry it open and climb inside. It seems too dangerous.”

“Yeah, you're right. Too dangerous,” she shot him a pointed glance. Unlike _certain people_ , Ripley actually _listened_ when someone pointed out the risks of one of her plans. If he caught the hint he gave no sign of it. "So now I'm wondering if I'm gonna to have to jerry-rig something to force the doors open, or disarm one of the crew. Depends on what they've left us to work with, though."

She couldn't rig flash bombs and hack tools out of nothing but plastic bottles and freeze-dried rations, after all. Luckily they should have a lot more useful material than that at their disposal. It was just a matter of sorting how much of it was useful, and determining the best way to use it. Ripley’s gaze skimmed over the pieces of machinery that had recently been deposited on their work benches.

"Right. Let's take a closer look at the presents our friends left for us."

The pair of them stood and walked over to the first "present;" the one that had been left in the corner of the room farthest from the door. Identifying it was a simple matter, but just to be sure, Ripley looked at it from several different angles and lifted a few panels of its casing.

"Air purifier control module," she concluded. She ran her fingers through the bundles of frayed wires extending from the back of it. "The cords are all ripped. They tore it straight out of the wall. Messy." The smugglers apparently hadn't had time to neatly detach everything before claiming their prize. Their rough treatment had probably fucked with a lot of the internal circuitry. That explained why they now needed Ripley to patch up their mess for them.

Samuels peered underneath one of the panels that Ripley had finished examining. "Do you believe it can be repaired?"

"Yeah, it's an easy fix. And these controllers have tons of built-in redundancy. It’ll probably still work fine even I remove a few circuits to _re-purpose_. Okay, what else?"

Ripley and Samuels looked over each of the pieces of machinery, taking stock of the resources inside the drawers underneath them at the same time. The salvaged items represented a range of technology collected from across Sevastopol, bits and pieces of the systems that had kept the station afloat. A power coupling with a hairline crack on one side. A lifeboat’s gravity generator with a scuffed, half-melted casing. A dismantled comms terminal. There was even a personal computer; nothing special in itself, probably stolen for the company secrets it contained. Ripley noticed that every item could be described with the same ratio of large monetary value to small physical size. Every item showed telltale signs of being hastily removed.

All of them except for one.

"Well, hi there," Ripley addressed the final piece of machinery the same way someone less mechanically inclined might address friendly stray dog, "Where the hell did _you_ come from?"

Where all the previous items looked every bit like they'd been salvaged piecemeal from a failing space station, _this_ thing looked more like an engineering student's final class project. Several large banks of circuits had been joined together and connected with bundles of cable. Some parts of it were protected by a thick layer of lead shielding. Ripley even thought she recognized sawed-off antennae from several radio emitters that had been wired together. All the wiring looked neatly arranged; all welds seemed strong and clean.

Another engineer had been perfecting this for quite some time. This was somebody's pet project. This was somebody's _baby._

"Amanda?" the sound of her name snapped her out of her trance. Samuels' voice held a mild concern that made her wonder if he’d needed to speak her name more than once to get her attention. "Can you determine what it is?"

Ripley kept her gaze on the fascinating cluster of interlocked components in front of her, tilting her head to one side, then the other. Her eyes were probably glazing over as she stared at it, reading the language only fellow tinkerers understood.

"No. I have no idea what it is," she concluded.

She abruptly grabbed a screwdriver from the table next to them and handed it to Samuels before grabbing a second one for herself. "But we are _so_ going to figure it out."

 

\---

 

That night, instead of Sevastopol, Ripley dreamed about the mystery device.

She brought it back to her studio apartment on CC Station, set it on her bunk and placed herself next to it. After a moment of concentration, she shrunk her body down to bug-size so that she could walk within the maze of circuits and wires and blinking lights. As she did, everything in the device just seemed to… _connect_. Everything about it made complete and total _sense_. She woke with a renewed sense of optimism, but it quickly turned to frustration once she realized all the plans she’d hatched overnight had involved the assumption that magical shrinking people were an actual thing.

When she told Samuels about her dream the next morning, he chuckled and smiled, his expression filled with gentle amusement. She also detected a hint of relief around his eyes. He probably would’ve approved of _any_ dream of hers no matter how silly, as long as it didn't result in her waking up screaming.

That was also why she decided not to worry him by telling him about her next dream; the one where she followed the sound of her mother's voice through a web of tunnels and ended up back in the alien nest. Back in that pitch-dark, slime-coated nightmare. But this time she didn't escape. She didn't purge the reactor. This time, she was torn limb from limb by a hive full of horrors with spindly, black claws.

And the absolute _last_ thing she was about to do was tell Samuels about the dream after that, because _that_ was the one where his eyes changed from chestnut brown to glowing red. Ripley had learned that warning sign well, and had been on the receiving side of an android’s formidable strength many times before. She knew exactly what was coming next, but when he lunged at her she didn't even attempt to escape. She didn't struggle because even though he began crushing her windpipe with one hand, he was caressing her cheek with the other. He was holding her close, reassurances on his lips, his low, purring voice repeating a soothing litany next to her ear - _hush now,_ _I'm here Amanda, it's all right_ – until she couldn’t tell whether her dizziness was from a lack of oxygen or something _else._

It wasn’t his fault that Ripley had been traumatized by some of his distant relatives, or that she was starting to succumb to cabin fever or sensory deprivation or _whatever the fuck_ this was. No, it was better for everyone that she kept this to herself. But Ripley had to wonder if he'd worked it out on his own. Maybe she'd said something incriminating in her sleep, some mumbled word or moan, because she woke that morning to find Samuels on the opposite side of the room busying himself with a tool he had no idea how to operate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why can't I just end things on a nice note. Why.
> 
> Just a small update this time, you know, to show that I am indeed still alive and writing. I think I've finally managed to build up some creative momentum again, so I'm hoping I'll be able to keep up with more regular updates going forward. 
> 
> I'd also like to spend time responding to your wonderful comments (which I have been failing at quite spectacularly) and do another round of minor edits (to get rid of some stuff that's been making me cringe for the past few months) so if something seems to read a bit differently than you remember, it's probably just me and my nitpicking. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading! Seriously, thank you so much. I don't quite know how to express just how astounded and grateful I am that you've come with me this far.


	8. Chapter 8

 

"Hey, Garcia, toss me a ration," the Captain called from his seat in front of the security cameras.

Lowe glanced up from her Comms readouts just in time to see Garcia jolt awake and yank his face out of the crook of his elbow. He'd been sleeping at his console more and more frequently lately. Reluctant to leave the company of his crew, the cozily cramped bridge, and the comforting thrum of the bridge's electronics... much better than the silent, empty hallways beneath them, she supposed. The ship's navigator rifled through the pile of vacuum-sealed ration packets front of him and threw one over to the Captain.

He snatched it from midair, peeled it open, broke off a corner and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, the Captain turned back to the array of screens on his console and rested the heel of one boot next to the keyboard.

"Hm. Not bad," he said as he contemplated the foil-wrapped item in his hand. "Guess I'm finally getting used to these shitty things."

The bridge of the _Esmeralda_ went quiet once again. It had never been the hub of social activity that many other ships enjoyed. Even when they weren't locked away in hypersleep the crew spent most of their time either absorbed in their individual tasks around the ship, or away from the ship entirely; venturing into whatever target they were currently docked onto.

But Sevastopol had changed everything.

It was just the three of them now. They crowded onto the bridge, spending nearly every waking hour there (and in Garcia's case, most of the sleeping ones as well), staying clustered together out of instinct. All of them had learned on Sevastopol that "alone" was the deadliest state of all to be trapped in. Lessons like those stuck with you for months, years, decades afterward; long after you stopped wanting to remember them.

Lowe peered over the backrest of her chair as the Captain became engrossed in his cameras again. They provided an excellent distraction for him, keeping him busy, keeping him from thinking up too many new schemes during this downtime. He'd spent most of the return trip so far glued to that console, especially one screen in particular. And as he watched he kept one hand pressed to his ear to hold his earpiece in place, listening to their captives down in the repair ward.

For a while that had irritated her - as the ship's communications specialist and his third-in-command (well, _second_ -in-command now, technically) you'd _think_ her captain would've kept her in the loop - now she wasn't sure she even _wanted_ to know. It was bad enough that Lowe had to participate in this at all. She wasn't about to let herself sympathize with their android cargo or that unlucky technician if she could help it. It was far too late to back out of this mission, so she'd just have to grin and bear it and do her best to not overhear anything that might keep her from living with herself later on.

"Hey, Lowe, come over here for a minute," the Captain suddenly called out. Speaking of grinning and bearing things...

The comms specialist dug her nails into the vinyl armrests of her chair for one extra moment before she rose and strode over to the Captain. She picked a spot to stand in that was as far away from him as possible without it seeming purposefully evasive. Her commander popped another morsel into his mouth and motioned at the screen on the rightmost-bottom corner of the console. Inside it, the grainy video feed from the room that held their captives played in black and white. All of them were standing clustered around a piece of equipment on one of the tables. The technician was talking and gesticulating animatedly while the two androids listened.

"What did Harris tell you about that thing they've been working on?" her commander asked her.

Lowe frowned to herself. "He said he was building something I'd be interested in. Could help us out if we ever got in another pinch like Delta Pavonis. But he didn't think he had the parts to finish it."

"Yeah," the Captain murmured, "That's all he told me, too. He knew I was too dumb to understand anything technical." One corner of his mouth twitched upward, a wry but genuine smile. It faded as quickly as it appeared. Just a brief glimmer of the man he'd once been.

The Captain always been fond of their late engineer, and he'd never bothered to hide his favoritism. Of all the crew Harris had stuck with him the longest. The two of them had spent inordinate amounts of time joking around and scheming up new business ventures together. The engineer was sociable and well respected, and his loss had hit everyone hard, but the Captain took it worst of all. Lowe had even felt sorry for him for a little while, when his grief was still fresh. Before it had transitioned into... whatever _this_ was.

She held on to that thread of normalcy, tried to draw it back out of him. "What made you decide to give that thing to her, anyway?"

The Captain gave a gruff half-chuckle and ran a hand over his bristled chin. "Why _not?_ Nobody else will be able to figure out what he was trying to do. Brilliant guy; never wrote anything down, of course. Why, you worried?"

"That she's building a bomb out of it? Yes, aren't you?"

"Relax," the Captain scoffed. He tapped the earpiece lodged snugly inside his right ear. "Miss Engineer's got a different plan. She thinks she's turned it into some kind of distress beacon - could be very useful for us to have around."

Lowe's hackles went up. "Beacon? You're letting her break radio silence?" And because of what? His curiosity? _Nostalgia?_

_"It's not gonna get through the shielding._ Christ, I _told_ you to relax," he waved her off. "Keep watching. She's doing the first test right now. I, for one, am very interested to see how well she did."

He motioned at the screen again and munched on another bite of ration wafer. Lowe sighed in resignation and shifted her weight to her other leg. This was turning into a slightly longer commitment than 'a minute' of her time.

On the screen, Ripley... (no, "the technician." Keep things impersonal.) the technician seemed to be explaining something to the WY android, becoming increasingly frustrated as she did so; her shoulders were tensing, her hands cutting the air in short, sharp gestures. One of her hands darted forward and grabbed his arm, giving it a gentle shake. As soon as she touched him, her shoulders relaxed, her body language softened. She released his arm, motioning at the device - _see? it's fine._ Whatever she'd said seemed to have appeased him; they turned back to their project.

While watching the interplay between them, the Captain made a noise in between a laugh and a grunt. "You know what I still can't figure out, though?"

"What?"

"How those two got on the station. I mean, both with the Company uniforms - it's not coincidence, they must've flown to Sevastopol together. But why'd the Company send them? Did they know each other _before_ this shitstorm? What do you think?"

"How the hell should I know that?" Lowe didn't like the direction this was going.

The Captain shrugged. "I don't know... weren't you hanging around with that one android a while ago? They're so fucking hard to _read_. I thought maybe you got a vibe from this one."

"Well, I didn't," she stated firmly. End of story.

The Captain shrugged and - _thank god_ \- dropped the subject; they went back to watching the video feed in silence. After a few more minutes of adjusting wiring and tightening screws, Ripley and her assistants looked like they were ready to finally test the device. The Working Joe looked on impassively from a nearby corner while the other two nodded to each other. Ripley had installed a keypad on one side of the device, and now she reached for it and pressed a series of buttons in quick sequence.

She paused for one final moment of self-doubt, fingers clenching nervously. She then steeled herself and pressed one last button.

At that exact instant, the bridge of the _Esmeralda_ was flooded with a shrill electronic screech and the screens on every console began roiling with lines of multihued static. On the opposite end of the room, Garcia fell out of his chair and hit the floor with a hard thud.

"Shit-!" the Captain yelled in pain as he yanked his earpiece from his face, sending it clattering against the console.

After ten seconds of piercing noise the screens cleared and the bridge went quiet once again. With the static gone, the bridge was no longer blind; they could see into their captives' room again. Ripley must've switched off her device. It now sat tipped onto its side, shoved over in a panic. All of her attention was now focused on the WY android. He wasn't looking too good - grabbing his temple with one hand, hunching over the table - but she plants both hands on his shoulders and after a moment he nods to her, stands up straight again.

That's when they turn around and see what's happened to the Joes.

Joes, _plural,_ because not only has the one they've repaired collapsed onto the floor in a twitching heap; the rest of the Joes laid out behind them have started moving as well.

And when the intact Joe drags itself upright again, its motions convulsive and deeply unnatural, its eyes flashing dangerously between red and white, the dismembered Joes start following suit. They're pulling their misshapen, damaged bodies as close to upright as they can manage, and together, they begin crawling toward the captives.

The only synthetic _not_ in the midst of an apparent meltdown, the synthetic whose sale will be putting food on their plates and fuel in their engines for an entire _year_ , is shielding Ripley with his body, placing himself between her and the Joes. Directly in harm's way.

"Shit... shit! Get down there!" The Captain leaps from his chair, grabbing his shotgun from its spot on the console, "Grab a gun and _fucking get down there!"_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Space assholes to the rescue...? 
> 
> (Another short chapter; the next one should be up in a minute!)


	9. Chapter 9

 

Ripley swears she can hear _\- feel -_ the sudden additional presences in the room before she sees a single one of them move. It's something in the air, maybe some kind of low-frequency hum or vibration that happens when they turn on; something she learned to recognize on Sevastopol. She knows instantly that a group of Joes is in the room with her.

She backs against the table on reflex, her hands scrambling for nonexistent weapons in imaginary holsters. All those dismembered Joes are moving towards her, even the ones that are less "android" and more "twisted heap of parts." They're coming towards her dragging partially attached limbs and trailing bundles of organs. Her breathing speeds up, approaching hyperventilation... even the Joe she repaired and began to think of as _"her"_ Joe is lurching towards her; why, _why the fuck did she ever let her guard down around them?_

Before the panic can completely overwhelm her a solid body appears in front of her, a wall between her and the advancing Joes. No, Samuels... he's strong, but against _how_ many other androids? Six? Seven? Broken or not, there were too many of them. They were going to tear him apart.

Ripley reached blindly onto shelf behind her. Her fingers landed on the handle of a screwdriver. Maybe if she jammed it into a Joe's eye socket at just the right angle... She wielded her makeshift weapon and tried to leap forward, but was blocked by an arm thrusting out in front of her.

"Amanda, stay behind me!" Samuels said, clipped and urgent.

"No fucking way, Samuels! You can't handle this yourself!"

No time to argue about it. The closest Joe was almost on top of them. She grabbed his arm and tried to shove it aside, he shoved even further back instead, her hip hitting the cart behind her with a sharp clatter.

_"Stay behind me!"_

He yelled it. He actually _yelled_. Ripley's certain she's never heard _any_ synthetic speak above a soft, respectful tone. That abrupt switch from quiet obedience was so startling that as he moved to grab the first Joe, Ripley sat frozen, awestruck.

The Joe reached for his leg, but before it could get a firm hold on him he gripped either side of its skull and twisted a full one-hundred-eighty degrees in a single, efficient motion. There was a loud _snap_ , followed by the sizzle of severed wiring, and just like that the other synthetic went limp, white fluid gurgling from its mouth. A second Joe managed to get as far as grabbing his arm before he latched onto the back of its neck and savagely slammed its face into the floor.

"I only... wanted to... help..." the Joe spoke through a final gush of blood, its voice dropping two octaves before trailing off into silence. Its eyes flickered to black.

Ripley finally managed to snap herself out of her daze long enough to duck under his arm while he was distracted. She readied her small weapon and set her stance, facing off against one of the crawling Joes. But before it could close the distance to its target, it crumpled to the ground all on its own, its eyes going dark. The rest of the damaged Joes were doing the same - going limp, shutting down. Only the one that Ripley had repaired remained awake.

"Connection lost," it said as it stood frozen in place, staring up at the ceiling. It kept repeating the phrase over and over, broken record style, "Connection lost. Connection lost." Samuels stared at it, watching it get stuck further and further inside its cognitive spiral for a few seconds, before deciding. He took one menacing step towards it.

"Wait," Ripley grabbed his arm to stop him mid-stride. The Joe's eyes had gone white again. "Wait, it's over..."

Before she had time to convince him more eloquently, she was interrupted by the squeal of the hatch sliding open and the group of armed smugglers that rushed into the room after it.

"Stay the fuck where you are if you don't want a round to the face," the Captain announced, brandishing his shotgun at the frozen Working Joe. The other two crew members piled in behind him, aiming their weapons at the rest of the now-deactivated androids. "All of you. _Do not fucking move."_

Slowly, Ripley faced the door. Flashing their weapon around a bunch of simpleminded, safety-obsessed Joes? Were these people crazy? "Okay, let's just... just relax. Look, everything's fine now. And for Chrissake, put that thing down, don't you under...."

_"Nothing about this looks "fine" to me, Ripley!"_ the Captain yelled, locking the sight of his weapon onto her instead, "I've got Joes down here turning themselves on. I've got a sabotaged device that _made_ them turn on. And I've got one engineer who thought it would be a good idea _to double-cross me!_ "

"What? I-I didn't!" she cried, "Why the fuck would I purposely build something that would make them try to kill us?”

From behind the sight of his shotgun, the Captain pursed his lips and shook his head. "This isn't helping your case, Ripley. You told me you knew what you were doing. You said you could help me... and _you,_ Mister Samuels," his glare landed on the synthetic standing next to her, " _You_ said you'd make sure this didn't happen, that you had everything under control! Both of you have fucked up royally, but _she's_ the one who's going to pay for it!"

He cocked his shotgun with a sharp click that made Ripley's heart leap into her throat.

" _Wait!_ Please!"

Samuels, once again, stepped in front of her; stepped between her and the looming threat of death.

"You mustn't harm her," his voice remained firm and unshaken, "Yes, we made a mistake, but please, Captain, be reasonable. Give us another chance. Shooting her isn't going to do anyone any good, least of all you!"

Ripley couldn't see the Captain's reaction to this plea - Samuels' back was blocking her view - but she heard the man breathe out a slow, controlled exhale. Finally, Samuels had the Captain's attention, and he ran with it.

"Who will repair all of your recent acquisitions?" he pointed out, "You're going to lose a significant percentage of your investment without her here-"

In a voice low and deadly, the Captain interrupted, "And why should I take advice from a two-faced Company robot?"

So Samuels explained, with that same inhuman level of composure, "Because, sir, I am more than agile enough to place myself in the trajectory of that shotgun or any other weapon you attempt to fire at her, and if I need to do so, I'll ensure that my _most expensive_ components are destroyed." He ended the declaration with a slight huff. "Also, because I'm right."

Ripley's jaw stayed clenched painfully tight, her teeth grinding uncomfortably. The tension stretched on and on as they waited for the Captain's response. It came in the form of a sigh of resignation and the click of a disarming shotgun.

"Damn it," he muttered, "This is the last time I deal in androids, I swear to god..."

In front of her Samuels' shoulders relaxed. They were going to be okay. Ripley touched his sleeve as she peered around him, watching their captors put their weapons away. As she did so he startled, just barely, just a slight flutter of his fingers. But this was the synthetic equivalent of him jumping out of his skin. It spoke volumes about the strain underneath his calm exterior.

The Captain aimed his scowl at her as soon as he caught her eye. His frown was almost as unpleasant as his smile had been, but at least the frown looked sincere. "You have one more strike, Ripley. Do not make me regret this. No more hotwiring my goods. No more stunts."

"There never was any 'stunt'. Like I _told_ you." she clenched her fingers around Samuels' sleeve and tried not to spit the words out, "But... thanks."

The Captain growled unhappily to himself at that. He motioned at Ripley's device. "Garcia, get that beacon out of here. We'll just scrap it. I don't give a shit anymore, I just want it _gone_."

"S-sure, Cap," the smaller man emerged from behind the Captain's tall, imposing form. Using both arms Garcia picked up the device, lugging it with difficulty toward the hatch and out into the hallway beyond. The female crewmember followed him, reaching to take up part of the load once it got too heavy for Garcia to handle by himself. The Captain went last, backing warily into the doorway, his shotgun slung over one shoulder.

"I do not like surprises, Ripley," he reminded her one final time, "Remember, one more fuck-up like this and it's out the airlock. I'll be watching." With that he closed the hatch between them, staring venomously through the viewport until the second door closed as well.

Ripley released the long, shuddering breath she'd been holding in, and turned to Samuels.

_"You,"_ Ripley began, pointing a finger at him, " _You_ are one smooth motherfucker, but I never knew you were also a _stubborn ass_."

He furrowed his brows at her in dismay (she wondered which of the two terms he objected to more) and huffed in exasperation. "Well, what would you have had me do? I wasn't about to let him shoot you."

"I'm not blaming you. Just stating the facts," she continued. One corner of her mouth lifted. "You're almost as bad as I am."

He didn't seem to know quite how to respond to that comment, either; it made Ripley's smirk grow even larger. She touched his arm again, more gently this time, and this time he didn't startle.

"Just let me help you next time, okay? I can handle myself in a fight. You never tried to coddle me like this when we were on the station."

"At the time I didn't have much choice in the matter," he told her. He'd been pretty busy trying to keep Taylor from bleeding out on the floor of the transit station. "But now that you have my full attention I can't allow you risk your life needlessly."

_Can't._ "That damn inhibitor again, huh," Ripley said, sympathetic.

Samuels opened his mouth, paused for a moment, then closed it silently; whatever he'd planned to say retracted before he could speak it. Odd. Ripley had never seen a synthetic do that before, either. They were always so purposeful in their mannerisms, never an uncertain or wasted motion. But they were becoming more realistic all the time, she supposed.

"I suppose so," he eventually said.

She nodded in acknowledgement and turning away, cradling her temple in one hand. The immensity of what had just happened and what they'd just lost hit her for the first time. That device had been their best shot of getting out of here in one piece. Their entire plan had hinged on it. They were going to use the beacon to broadcast an encoded signal calling for help. If it worked, there’d be no need to fight their way out of the hold and risk their lives trying to commandeer the ship. Surely even now, a week after the events on Sevastopol had reached their grim conclusion, Colonial authorities and salvage vessels must be flocking to the region. _Actual_ salvage vessels; not border runners smuggling stolen goods. Help would find them eventually.

As long as help knew they were here.

"Shit. We need to get that thing back," Ripley decided. "We've got to get out of here somehow and find it."

"I don't see much point to that," his voice was flat and bleak, "The modifications didn't take, Ripley. It malfunctioned."

"It _must've_ been working!" she growled, an outburst of frustration directed more toward the world at large than anyone in particular. Her hands clenched into claws. They yearned to pick something up and throw it across the room. Preferably something heavy and smashable. "We checked it over and over. _We didn't miss anything_. There was no reason for it _not_ to work."

"I'm sorry to say this, Amanda, but I don't think it worked the way we'd intended."

Ripley let loose another sigh as she paced the room. "While it was on, you said something about hearing some kind of 'interference'. What exactly did you hear?"

"It wasn't-" Samuels shook his head as though more of that interference needed to be cleared out again, "Wasn't precisely a _sound_. Just... noise. Scrambled information, but an extremely powerful signal."

And extremely unpleasant, if the way he'd crumpled over, clutching his head had been any indicator. But Samuels neglected to tell her that part, of course.

"So you couldn't decipher any kind of message at all?" she pried further, "No SOS? Nothing?"

"No," he told her. "But that isn't surprising. I wasn't designed to receive or interpret those kinds of wireless signals."

But there was someone in this room who _had_ been designed for exactly that. _Of course!_

"Joe," Ripley declared, spinning around to face the last hostage.

Since being left on its own, the Seegson android had gone eerily silent. It was still standing in the same place it had frozen, looking into the ceiling as though it had found something raptly hypnotizing up there. Ripley began to worry that it had been permanently damaged, somehow.

"Joe?" she repeated; when it didn't respond, she flashed a hand in front of its face, "Hello? Everything okay in there?" It slowly turned to face her, its eyes glowing placidly white. No tremors, no tics. That was a good sign, at least.

"Amanda Ripley," it spoke suddenly, "Communication with APOLLO has been lost."

"Yes. We _know,_ " Samuels sighed. His patience with the other android was wearing threadbare-thin, "But why did you attack us?"

A long pause. Then, "Amanda Ripley. Aid has been requested by APOLLO. You must help us re-establish communication with APOLLO. "

_"There is no APOLLO!"_ Ripley yelled in frustration. "It's gone! APOLLO is gone! It's been destroyed, the end, game over! The signal was coming from MY long-range distress beacon, understand? Now, _what did that signal tell you?"_

Whatever this revelation meant to it, whether this triggered in it some simulacrum of distress or grief, they would've had no way of knowing. It continued to stand there, expressionless, for another long, silent pause as it tried to assimilate the new information. Several moments later, it finally responded.

"S dash O dash S, spacefarer's distress code 7744," it enunciated flatly, "This was followed by a string of encoded text. The message repeated at peak rate of 930 cycles per second at an equivalent signal strength of 7900 dBu."

"It worked. I told you, Samuels," Ripley said. She was still a little amazed despite the confidence she'd displayed a few moments ago.

"But the equivalent strength - that's impossible. There's no way our beacon could have generated something that powerful," he peered at the other android, "Its internal sensors must be faulty."

"The equivalent signal strength was 7900 dBu," the Joe repeated without malice, but its inflection slowed down just a fraction, as though speaking to a child.

"Okay, okay, shut up, both of you," a pair of arguing androids was the _last_ thing Ripley needed right now, "Let's think. The signal was too strong. It repeated too many times. We set it to thirty cycles per second, right, not fucking nine-hundred-whatever; it's like... It's like the signal was bouncing around inside a tin can-"

Her gaze met Samuels' at the exact moment his eyes locked onto her in realization.

"This ship has stealth shielding," Ripley said, her voice low and awed. "Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. Jesus... it’s such a piece of shit on the inside I didn't even _think_ they could've had something that advanced..."

"Protection from external scanning," Samuels mused, "For a smuggler's vessel, it's ingenious. Passing ICC customs becomes a simple task..."

Ripley began pacing again; her anger quickly shifting into nervous energy. "Okay. We can work around this. It'll cost us time, and it sure as hell won't be as discreet..." she clenched her hands into fists. "But we _have to_ think of a way around this."

"Of course we'll find a way, Amanda," Samuels provided his usual reassurance, "'The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence', after all."

The little gem of wisdom came from so far out of left field that Ripley had to stop and laugh. "Okay Confucius, whatever you say."

"Frank Herbert, actually," he corrected her gently. "I can recite the entirety of the Orange Catholic Bible now, if you're interested."

Samuels said it with such a perfect poker face that she immediately braced for the incoming philosophy lecture, but at Ripley's expression of dawning horror, his lips lifted in a tiny smirk. Oh, no. Once he's mastered the art of sarcasm he's going to be a force to reckon with.

"Uh... maybe later. Like when I'm trying to get to sleep."

"Right. Perhaps we should work on another project for now, and consider this dilemma in further detail later."

"Some nice, dull, busywork to calm us down," she agreed with his assessment. She took a deep breath to begin the process, and as an afterthought, bent down and picked up the screwdriver-turned-weapon she'd dropped on the floor earlier "You know, maybe pull out the Orange Bible thing after all. Some boredom sounds fantastic right now."

 

\---

 

They ended the day as they usually did, following the same strange rhythm that had developed over the week they'd spent trapped together. Ripley gathered up her blanket, draped it over herself and they sat together on the floor, speaking about many things - the day they'd just survived, their plans for the next one, events on Sevastopol, anything at all - and the sound of his voice would lull Ripley to sleep.

As she felt her eyelids growing heavier, she turned to her companion next to her. This was the point where, normally, she'd lay down by herself, but... something was stopping her.

"-because he couldn't be bothered with going to retrieve it himself, I suppose." Samuels was going on about something that had happened in Marshal's office (she'd long since lost track of what). He stared down at his hands as he spoke, one resting atop the other on his lap."I _still_ don't know how he could've found out, but there you have it."

Maybe Ripley didn't want to interrupt him. Maybe it was just that his shoulder was closer (and softer) than the floor. Those were both perfectly valid reasons.

She leaned her weight against his side, testing the waters. When he didn't stiffen or pull away, she tilted her head to rest it on his shoulder. His words slowed, trailed off, then stopped completely.

"This okay?" his shoulder _was_ much more comfortable than the floor, and much warmer to boot. She let her posture relax and breathed in a deep, contented sigh. By some goddamn miracle Samuels' shirt still kind of smelled like freshly laundered cotton; another one of the many perks of being a synthetic. Ripley didn’t even want to think about what _she_ smelled like at this point. There were still hints of oil and smoke mixed in, along with that astringent latex-scent from his incision, but by now she barely noticed those anymore.

"Yes," he eventually said, voice quiet, "But this can't be entirely comfortable for you."

"You're warm," she declared, and that was the end of that. She edged another inch closer, bringing that side of her body completely flush with his, and closed her eyes.

He remained silent and, except for the steady (mimicked) breathing motions of his chest, remained completely still. Perfect. It would've been easy to pretend he was human at this point, to imagine that the faint, rhythmic pulse she heard inside his chest came from the valves of a heart and not a series of pumps, but she didn't feel a particular need to do so.

"Amanda?" he kept his voice quiet so not to startle her awake. She responded with a questioning hum, reluctant to open her eyes. He was _so warm._ Why would they design him with warm, lifelike skin, if not for this? Why would they give that to him, if he wasn’t meant to be touched?

He paused, waiting as she stirred and settled again; then he repeated, barely audible. "Amanda," - why was he being so _quiet?_ Ripley was an inch away from his lips and could barely hear him - "When did you tell the Captain that the device you were building was a long-range beacon?"

In her half-conscious state the words sank in slowly, but once they got inside, they sank all the way to her core. A slow tide of dread crept over her.

"I didn't tell him," she whispered, matching his volume.

"Neither did I," he said.

Oh.

_Well._

 

 

Well, shit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. This is not looking good. But at least snuggling has been achieved. As least they have that. <3
> 
> WOW! Some amazing things have happened since the last update that I'd like to share with everyone!
> 
> If you'll check back to the first chapter, you'll find that this fic now has COVER ART (??!??!)  
> And here's some other pieces of fanart inspired by this fic (!!??!?!!) from some friends on tumblr, which blows my mind in every possible way:  
> [I completely flipped out when I saw this](http://malsart.tumblr.com/post/120393500916/hi-if-youve-played-or-watched-someone-play-alien) \- by Bldymalice  
> [The cutest sketches ever](http://lorenzsystech.tumblr.com/post/121556898007/well-okay-i-finally-managed-to-find-time-to) \- by lorenzsystech  
> [Amanda is totally, definitely a professional](http://bldymalice.tumblr.com/post/120864065523/me-and-interferon-were-giggling-like-idiots-at) \- by Bldymalice again :D
> 
> I will now proceed to stare at these lovingly for the next 10 years.
> 
> Thank you again for reading, everyone!


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